


The Summoner's Knight

by Ms_Starlight



Category: Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 69,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Starlight/pseuds/Ms_Starlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FFVIII/FFX Crossover. Quistis Trepe is a summoner without a guardian until Seifer Almasy appoints himself the task and joins her on her pilgrimage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kilika

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for malena_sama as part of a gift exchange on the seiferxquistis community on Live Journal. I give her credit for the premise, which proved so fruitful for me that instead of the one-shot I expected to write, I began this full-length fic instead! This takes place in the FFX world and will have many FFX cameo appearances. But it deals primarily with FFVIII characters.

Chapter 1: Kilika

Sin came to Kilika when Quistis was eight years old, only a few short months before Lord Braska defeated the monster in Zanarkand. She'd been rushed inland along with all the other school children when the alarms first sounded. And from the crowded, high courtyard of the temple she watched as Sin's back breached from the water, creating a massive wave the washed over the city.

Both of her parents drowned.

Now, more than ten years later, she stood in the same spot looking out to sea, her hands clenched nervously together under her long sleeves. Ever since she'd walked into the temple, consumed with grief, and committed herself to Yevon, she'd known exactly who she wanted to be at her side the moment she defeated Sin. So she'd asked him to meet her here where it had all begun.

"I'm not going to be an apprentice much longer," she told him.

He shifted beside her but didn't respond.

"Tomorrow I'm going to face the Cloister of Trials. I'm going to become a full-fledged summoner and start on my pilgrimage." It made her shiver to say aloud and she couldn't help but turn and look at him, eager to see that he shared her passion for the quest. He had to, she thought, since he'd also lost family that fateful day—his mother, Raine.

But with his long brown hair hanging in his eyes and his arms crossed, Squall Leonhart didn't so much as blink. And after a long pause, he said, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to come with me." She fought back the urge to grab his arm. She'd been dreaming about their journey together for a long time. About how they'd be unstoppable. How they'd bring about a calm longer than Braska's—longer than anyone's. And how along the way they'd see the far reaches of the world together, from the Thunder Plains to Macalania Woods. Her heart warmed just to think of it.

"You're asking me to be your guardian?"

"Yes."

One hand propped on his hip, Squall turned away from her. "I can't."

"What? Why?" Quistis's voice sounded small.

"I joined the Crusaders."

"Well..." She bit her lip. "Come with me anyway. As a Crusader you can protect a few people. But with me, you could save everyone." Unlike her, he still had family in Kilika to consider, his father and sister, neither of whom would ever truly be safe so long as Sin roamed Spira's oceans. He had to see that he could do far more for them at her side than anywhere else.

He rested one hand on the hilt of his sword. "There are other ways to fight. I've already committed to an operation up north."

"What kind of operation?" The Crusaders spent the majority of their time defending cities, tracking Sin across the globe, and mopping up behind it. Important work. But not half as prestigious or meaningful as being a guardian.

"I just know where to report," he told her, "not what will happen when I get there."

"I'm sure your superiors will understand if you explain. I'll be ready to go by the time you have to leave. So I could even explain to them myself." The idea gave her added steam. "You'd make a magnificent guardian. I've already talked to the priests about it, and they agree."

Squall blew out a breath. "Are you almost done?"

 _Almost done?_ She didn't even know what to say to that.

"I've made my decision," he said, the context clear that he wouldn't he swayed from it.

She could hardly believe that during the hours she'd spent communing with Yevon, imagining their future together, he'd picked up his sword and left her behind. The shock of his dismissal didn't fully sink in until Quistis arrived back home.

The woman who had adopted her, Edea Kramer, waited inside, her legs crossed at the ankle under her long, black dress as she sat mending a tear in one of her husband's shirts. Together Cid and Edea ran the school. Quisits supposed that he was still there, wrapping up administrative odds and ends, since Edea sat alone. Two plates rested on the kitchen table with a scrap piece of cloth thrown over them to keep the food underneath warm.

"How'd it go?" Edea asked.

A torrent of emotion hit Quistis as she explained what Squall had said. In her moment of weakness, she flopped down in front of her dinner and dashed stray tears from her eyes. The floor creaked as Edea got up and walked across the room. Her small hand rested on Quistis's shoulder.

"I always thought he'd be here...waiting," Quistis said.

"You and Squall each have your own paths. You'll see," Edea said. She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, too. "Don't fret too much over this, darling. Your knight will show up soon. I'm certain."

Quistis nodded though she found it hard to believe anyone could be so great a guardian as Squall.

But in the morning she'd go to the temple anyway and pray to the fayth. Perhaps Yevon would give her some guidance.

0 0 0

The long boat trip from Luca to Kilika left Seifer Almasy feeling queasy. Even as he walked along the dock and watched the steady wooden planks pass underneath his feet, he could feel the imprint of the waves on his body. Up and down. Side to side. He stopped, covered his mouth, and breathed through his nose for a long moment until the rolling surge of nausea abated.

"OKAY?" Fujin asked.

"Fine," Seifer grunted and dragged his sleeve across his mouth.

Raijin followed behind Fujin, carrying a huge pack strapped to his back that contained all of their traveling supplies. While the sea had sucked the life out of Seifer, it had bolstered Raijin, adding color to his already tawny complexion and filling him with an annoyingly ecstatic verve for life. Raijin took a deep breath of the fresh sea air, hiked the pack higher on his shoulders and said, "I hope I get the chance to check out the Beasts before the big tourney in Luca. I hear they're supposed to be good this year, ya know?"

"We've got bigger things to do here than check out blitzball stats," Seifer replied.

Raijin looked doubtful that anything could be more important than blitzball. Until recently, the sport had consumed Raijin's entire life. He'd played for the Luca Goers the past five years with Fujin as his ball-busting coach. They both loved the game and never would have left Luca had Seifer not dragged them south in an effort to fulfill his own dream: to become a guardian, vanquish Sin, and save the world.

He'd been thinking about it for the past ten years, ever since Lord Braska's Calm began. But any real chances for valor were few and far between in Luca, home of merchandising shops, sports stadiums, and far too many Crusaders spending all their time and effort watching over a giant ball filled with water.

But Kilika had produced a high summoner before. He felt certain he'd find his destiny here.

"We gonna at least have time to stop and eat?" Raijin asked. He rubbed his belly. "I could use a refill."

The mere thought of stopping in a restaurant and watching Raijin eat had Seifer moving to the edge of the dock again, ready to hurl. Had he consumed anything in the past twenty four hours, he might have. But as it was, he had only a single dry heave to give the ocean. He swept his gloved hand through his short, blond hair and came to a quick decision.

"You two go eat and then get a room. I'll head up to the temple by myself." _And get a little peace and quiet in which to recover,_ he thought with a scowl.

"Sounds like a great plan to me, ya know!"

"RIGHT!"

The two headed into downtown Kilika while Seifer took the road leading further inland. The city had high wooden walls to hold back the fiend infested forest that made up the island's interior. Past that, he could see the mountain on top of which sat the temple. Its sacred flames flickered visibly even from the waterfront.

"Heading out of the city?" one of the men at the wall asked as Seifer made to pass through the gate.

"Trying to," Seifer replied.

"You armed? It's dangerous out there."

With one hand, Seifer swept back his gray trench coat to reveal the long, glimmering edge of his blade, Hyperion. "I'm prepared," he snapped, irritated at being held up by these two guards in the heat of the day, which only aggravated his seasickness.

"Hey." One of the men held up his hands. "I'm just doing my job."

The city of Kilika sat balanced between twin threats: wilderness on one side and the deadly sea on the other. As Seifer stepped through the gate and onto the open grass leading up to the tree line, he thought that he'd take the threat from fiends over Sin any day. But he could see why so many people chose to live along the coast instead. Ragoras and ochus represented a constant danger, one that couldn't be avoided even during calms, whereas Sin might pass up the city all together for years at a time. They drew comfort from the possibility of safety. Seifer preferred control.

He shrugged out of his coat before entering the trees, wrapping it around his waist, and kept Hyperion at the ready.

A narrow trail led through the trees. He followed it until a killer bee flew out of the bushes at him—an insect the size of a pony, its stinger already bulging out of its bulbous abdomen. Seifer made short work of it. He drove Hyperion straight through its thorax, pinning it to the dirt until it finally dissolved into a cloud of pyreflies.

"Ooh. Very nice work," said a low, feminine voice behind him.

He turned to find a woman, dark skinned and barely dressed standing behind him. She had one hand propped on her hip and on her other side stood a man who looked to have fallen out of the trees only a generation ago.

"I'm Dona," the woman said. "Haven't seen you around here before."

From the look of her, Seifer guessed she took note of every man who passed through Kilika. Her dress resembled a half-peeled corn husk, loosely laced across the front and the back so that the cleft between her breasts and the dark V of her underwear showed through.

"I just arrived from Luca," Seifer replied.

"Really? Looking for something in particular?"

Not that she'd be much help, but... "Yes. A summoner."

Both of her eyebrows raised. "Well, aren't you in luck. I'm Kilika's resident summoner. This is my guardian, Barthello."

Seifer cocked his head in disbelief.

"You're it? The only summoner in Kilika?"

Dona flinched but didn't lose her haughty stance. "The only one that matters," she replied. "In fact, I'm on my way to the temple right now. You're welcome to come along if you'd like. Safety in numbers and all." She smiled, malicious and cat-like. Seifer merely shrugged in response. They were already headed in the same direction, and if she possessed any skill as a summoner, he'd find out well before they got to the temple. Of course, if she proved better than she looked, he'd have to find some way of getting rid of her trained monkey.

As Seifer lowered Hyperion and waved the two past, meaning to bring up the rear, Bathello cast him a withering look. Maybe the lug wasn't as stupid as he looked, Seifer thought.

The entire way up to the temple, Dona allowed Seifer and Barthello to take care of the fiends while she stood well behind them and observed. As they climbed the temple steps, Seifer turned to her and asked, "Why haven't you left on your pilgrimage? Why are you still in Kilika?"

"Well...I'm technically still an apprentice. I'm waiting for my chance to pray to the fayth."

"What's the hold up? Can't you make it through the Cloister of Trials?"

Dona laughed. "No. There's another summoner already in there. Been there for hours and hours now."

When they got to the temple courtyard, Seifer could indeed see that the sacred flames burned blue, indicating that a summoner was now deep within the temple, praying to the fayth. A few priests milled about in their robes and some townspeople sat praying to statues. From among them emerged a young man with long brown hair and a scar across the bridge of his nose. Seifer recognized him immediately—Squall Leonhart. From the way his mouth fell into an immediate grimace, Seifer supposed that Squall remembered him, too. They'd traded scars in the blitzball pool, after all. Seifer first (not quite accidentally) catching Squall with his famous Fire Cross Shot. Later in the game, Squall got him back with a violent shot of his own. They'd been known all year for their intense rivalry. But that escalation of violence got them both kicked from the game and the sport.

"Imagine seeing you here, Puberty Boy," Seifer said, using the same nickname he'd had for Squall back in their blitz days. "Are you asking Yevon for balls, talent, or both?"

Squall ignored him and glanced at Dona instead. "You can't go in. Quistis isn't done yet."

Interesting development. Squall knew the summoner.

"I can see that," Dona replied. "But someone ought to go check on her since she's in there all alone, and I am the only one able to enter the cloister after her."

Taking a wild chance, Seifer pulled his coat back on and announced, "Actually, that's why I'm here."

Squall and Dona both looked at him, wide-eyed with surprise (and Barthello with evident relief). Seifer stepped around all three to make his way into the temple, jogging headlong through the doors and down the staircase leading into the cloister. Only a single, wizened priest tried to stop him.

"The precepts..." he began, waving a feeble hand.

"It's okay!" Seifer shouted over his shoulder. "I'm her guardian!"

0 0 0

Exhausted and trembling, Quistis pressed her palms flat against the the inlaid floor beneath her which showed the corded expanse of a man's back ringed by flame and blades. The fayth. She knew his name now—Ifrit—and could feel the man's soul light and airy like a cloud of invisible pyreflies. Having knelt for so long, her legs ached and barely managed to hold her weight as she stood up. Her head swam and her vision clouded with black. The long ordeal of prayer had pushed her close to the edge so that she now felt able to peer across the chasm separating life and death.

She smoothed her hair away from her face and moved toward the chamber door. It peeled open with a touch, letting in a cool breath of fresh air that whispered across her neck and belly where her shirt parted above her navel. She sucked in a grateful breath and, with one hand braced against the door frame, looked down the steps into the chamber beyond.

A man stood there. Tall. Blond. Wearing a long, gray trench coat. And he had a scar across the bridge of his nose nearly identical to Squall's.

"Who are you?" Quistis asked, her tone and manner sharpened by fatigue and surprise. "How did you get in here?"

He bowed. "I'm your guardian."

Not sure what to think, she stared. Had someone set this up? Edea or Cid?

"I'm sorry if someone told you—" she began, but he interrupted her.

"Did you do it? Are you a summoner?"

She crossed her arms and tried not to look wobbly. "Yes."

"Then you need a guardian." He glanced around the conspicuously empty room and smirked. "Lucky for you, I'm available."

Confounded, Quistis took her time walking down the steps toward him. She was accustomed to feeling tall, especially in her boots, but he towered over her, a commanding presence that both impressed and irritated her.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Seifer Almasy." He paused as if she may have heard of him before, then asked, "Yours?"

"Quistis... _Lady_ Quistis Trepe," she quickly amended. Now that she had earned that title, she found some comfort in requiring him to use it. It was the least he could do, anyway, after barging in on this raw, private moment.

"Lady Summoner it is, then," he said and bowed. "Did you have some trouble in there? With the fayth, I mean. From what I heard outside, you've been in there a while. And you look like shit."

Already, she didn't like him.

"It's not an instantaneous process. Even High Summoner Ohalland prayed here for more than five hours."

"Really?" Seifer sounded doubtful. His green eyes looked her up and down and she withered with humiliation, thinking that he was about to comment on her appearance again. Instead, he said, "You're not carrying a weapon. You're not another one of those summoners who thinks killing fiends is beneath them. Are you? 'Cuz I've already had my fill of that upstairs with Dona."

"Dona's upstairs?"

"Yeah. With Ape-Man and Pubes."

The former clearly referred to Barthello. But... "Pubes?"

"Squall."

Quistis felt as if she'd somehow fallen into another universe. This day couldn't get any weirder.

"You know Squall?"

One corner of Seifer's mouth quirked upward and he gestured to his scar. "We've met."

Since returning home to Kilika with his scar, Squall had refused to talk about it. And when Squall decided he didn't want to talk, a herd of wild chocobos couldn't convince him otherwise. So for a moment, wanting to know more about the man she loved and thereby understand him better, Quistis considered asking Seifer what had happened. The certainty that Seifer would see straight through her question and seek to manipulate the weakness he found underneath stopped her. Above all with this man, she sensed that she shouldn't show weakness.

And to that end...

She reached down and uncoiled her weapon from where it lay looped at her side, nestled just under the black silk bow she wore off the side of her hip, signifying her status as a summoner. The whip had once belonged to her father and he'd called it Save the Queen, saying that he'd once used it to rescue Quistis's mother from a fiend. Since acquiring it, she'd become much more proficient than her father had ever been and had even made several improvements to the weapon's design. Made from the fibers of a dried malboro tentacle, it slipped golden and sinuous through her fingers, the vicious, magic filled barbs lying flat.

"As a summoner without a guardian, I have no choice but to be well armed," she said.

Seifer looked down at her whip with the sort of the disdain she'd gotten used to (no one properly respected a whip until they saw it in action). "Better than nothing, I suppose," he said. "Come on, then. Let's get back up there and spread the good news."

He grabbed her, the leather of his gloves cool against the hot skin of her arm, and pulled her in the direction of the cloister.

"Listen," she said, tugging free, "I appreciate your offer, but I don't need or want your services as a guardian."

"You're going to go on your pilgrimage all alone? Fight Sin by yourself?"

She hardened. "I'll manage."

"So you're going to go up there and face the whole town, Pubes and Dona and everyone, as a summoner without a guardian?" His tone made that sound like the most embarrassing thing that could ever befall her. It gave her pause.

"I could have any guardian I want. There are plenty in Kilika who would love to travel to Zanarkand with me." A partial truth. While Kilika did have plenty of men (and women) eager to take their place at her side, the only one she wanted to had already refused.

"Well, if you don't want me, Dona sure does. Though I think in that case I might continue on to Besaid. I've heard that High Summoner Braska's daughter lives there. And she'll probably be the one to defeat Sin anyway. Family tradition and all."

 _What an asshole._ Quistis felt like slugging him. Instead, she rolled her eyes and pushed past him through the sanctum door and into the cloister beyond. All of this could be straightened out once she had a meal, a nap, and a bath. At the moment, she didn't feel like she had the wherewithal to work out where this man had come from or why he seemed so determined to make her life more difficult. At least he stopped talking as they walked through the cloister and up to the temple door beyond.

"Lady Quistis!" One of the priests assailed her the moment she reached the top of the temple stairs. The man, flanked by two acolytes, pointed at Seifer and demanded, "Please, explain! This man broke precepts, rushing into the temple against our commands. It's sacrilege!"

"No it's not," Seifer replied. "I'm her guardian. I'm allowed."

All eyes turned to Quistis.

"Is this true?" The priest's eyebrows raised expectantly. Everyone in Kilika knew she'd yet to name a guardian. Unfortunately, Quistis could still be held responsible for Seifer's actions. For his flagrant disregard for the precepts, she could be excommunicated, ending her quest to defeat Sin here and now.

Gritting her teeth, she bowed. "Yes. Of course he is my guardian. I apologize for his late arrival and the confusion."

Behind her, she knew Seifer had to be grinning.

"I hope you'll give the priests at the rest of Yevon's temples more consideration," the priest scolded, his tone too much like a parent's for Quistis's liking. She'd worked too hard to get dressed down like this. Especially when the mistake hadn't been her own. When the priest finished with them, he offered Quistis a small bow, congratulated her on successfully becoming a summoner, and allowed them to pass.

Outside, the gathered crowd hushed and turned to look at her when she stepped through the door. The sun blinded her and she had to shade her eyes with her arm. Among those gathered she sought out Squall, whose expression gave nothing away, and Dona, whose expression told Quistis just how much she resented not getting to the Chamber of the Fayth first. The gathered acolytes and town folk rushed to congratulate her.

Squall didn't stick around to say anything, just nodded in her direction, turned on his heel, and left. Dona grabbed hold of Barthello and marched into the temple, her expression determined and ugly.

"We should leave on the next boat," Seifer said once her well-wishers dispersed.

"There isn't any _we_ ," she replied under her breath.

"There was a minute ago."

"That's because you apparently broke the precepts to barge in there and harass me. Do you know how much trouble I could have gotten into because of you?"

"It all turned out fine. I don't see anything to be upset about."

Of course he didn't. It all had gone just how he'd wanted. What sort of guardian had no honor? She had to get away from this man or he'd doom her pilgrimage.

Sure of himself, he smiled, pulled his coat off, and tied it around his waist for the long walk down the temple steps to the forest below. He wore a blue vest underneath with a silver cross down the middle. Underneath he looked lean and fit, his arms and shoulders reminding her more of Ifrit's fayth than anything else she'd seen recently. The bright sunlight made his eyes appear strikingly green. Handsome, she thought. And he knew it.

"You're used to getting your way. Aren't you?" she said as they walked. "Used to charging through life without forethought or planning." She paused for a beat, taking his silence as confirmation and continued, "That's too bad. Because if you really want to become a guardian, that lack of discipline and control is going to prevent you from ever realizing your dream."

"I have plenty of control."

"None that I've seen."

"What about you?" he fired back, turning to glance at her as they crossed a landing to another set of stairs. "You're so focused on becoming a summoner you never bothered to make any friends to go on the journey with you."

"I have friends."

"Squall Leonhart? He doesn't count. You'd be better off with a pet rock."

His comment had struck close enough to home that it stung. Bitterly. "Don't act like you know me," she said.

"You're acting like you know _me_ ," he pointed out.

"Somehow, I don't think there's too much to know," she replied.

Quisits knew a shortcut through the forest, so when they reached the tree line she stepped off the beaten path, under a low hanging branch, and leaped over a small, rocky stream. Seifer followed and they immediately encountered a fiend. Forgetting that she now had an aeon to do battle for her, Quistis unfurled her whip and destroyed the beast with a single, punishing snap.

"Not bad," Seifer said. High praise coming from him, she figured.

Among those in Kilika who knew how to fight, she'd long been hailed as a prodigy. Competent at both magic and physical combat. She knew she was a force to be reckoned with.

As it happened, Seifer was, too.

The forest gave her plenty of time to watch him in action. And she had to admit to some begrudging admiration. He fought with fluid grace, using his sword one handed. It made him faster and more agile than Squall who always fought with both hands on his blade. They'd match each other one on one, she thought. Something she wouldn't have admitted as possible moments before. Clearly, she'd underestimated Seifer physically. But his skill against fiends didn't necessarily make him a good guardian. His attitude still got in the way. And she just plain didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

When they arrived back in town, the warm scent of food drifting on the air made Quistis's stomach rumble. Already the sun sat low in the sky. Dinner time. Edea would have something warm and wonderful waiting for her on the table. She picked up her pace.

"Quisty!"

She came to a stop so fast that Seifer nearly plowed into her. Ahead of them a man in a sea foam green shirt, worn lose and mostly unbuttoned waved and jogged to meet them. A dog darted out in front of him and he tossed both arms in the air to avoid tripping over it, losing a sandal in the process.

"Who the hell is that?" Seifer asked.

"Laguna," she replied. "Squall's dad."

Aside from their similar faces and long dark hair (Laguna's just now beginning to gray), father and son shared nothing in common. Laguna swept Quistis into hug. "I heard the good news! Congratulations!" he said into her hair. "Cid and Edea are going to be so proud. Well, they already are. But they're going to be...you know...more so." He grinned.

Seifer raised one gloved hand to hide the jaw-breaking grin spreading across his face.

"Ellone knows, too. Squall told us."

"He did? I didn't think—"

"I know. I heard about _that_ , too." Laguna shook his head, then seemed to notice Seifer for the first time. "Hello. You seem familiar."

"I'm Quistis's guardian," Seifer said.

"Really? Well...that's even better news." Laguna gave them both a thumbs up. "I'd better let you two kids get on your way. I'm sure Edea's waiting. I just wanted to be sure I had the chance to see you before...you know."

Many days worth of Quistis's life had been wasted trying to reconcile how someone as cold as Squall could possibly be related to someone so ruled by his emotions. Laguna pressed a cursory kiss to Quistis's cheek before smiling sadly and shooing her along her way. When Seifer sniggered, she socked him in the arm hard enough to make her knuckles sting.

"Why are you still here anyway?" she asked. "Don't you have a boat to Besaid to catch?"

"Thought I'd hang around a little longer."

 _Great_. She didn't want to take him home, but Kilika wasn't a big enough town to lose him in. And as she rounded a corner, she spotted Edea standing out on the deck of their second story home, her black hair and dark dress moving in the sea breeze. She stood on her toes and waved.

"That another one of Squall's relatives?" Seifer asked.

"No. That's Matron." At his puzzled expression, she explained, "She adopted me when my parents died."

There was no avoiding it now. Edea came down the steps. When Seifer introduced himself, overflowing all of the sudden with good manners and charm, Edea's face lit up and Quistis's stomach sank.

"Her guardian? Oh! Praise be to Yevon." She took Seifer by the arm. "Please, come inside. I'm sure you're both famished after such a long day." Quistis trailed up to her house behind them.

Inside, Quistis found Cid home as well. Moreso than Edea who was ten years his junior, Cid looked the part of a school teacher with his round glasses, bushy hair, and stocky build. At the moment he sat at the table, already halfway through his meal. He put down his fork and stood up when they all came inside.

Cid and Edea invited Seifer to sit and Quistis watched from her place across the table as he consumed an astonishing amount of food, as if he hadn't eaten a full meal in days. All the while, Cid and Edea asked him questions and pushed second helpings onto his plate. Much to Quistis's surprise, Seifer got along famously with Edea, his boorishness magically erased in her presence. He seemed the prefect gentleman. A guardian _par excellence_.

There'd be no way after this to break it to Matron that she intended to abandon this man the first chance she got. And she figured from the way Seifer smiled at her through a mouthful of pie that he knew it.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

No matter what, she resolved that she'd never allow Seifer Almasy to stand by her side in Zanarkand. Not for all of Spira.

0 0 0

Kilika only had one place for visitors to the island to stay and Seifer walked in just after sundown to find Fujin and Raijin sitting in the building's tiny lobby eating dinner and playing a game of cards. Fujin looked up from hers. "HUNGRY?"

"Nope." He kicked out one of the chairs, sat in it, and rubbed his belly. "Goods news though. I think I found us a summoner."

"ALREADY?"

"That was pretty fast, ya know. You sure ya got the right one?"

Seifer hitched one shoulder up in a casual shrug. Way he figured, this match was meant to be. Fate had delivered him into Quistis Trepe's life at the perfect moment, giving them both the chance to fulfill their deepest dreams. That she knew Squall, his longtime rival, only fueled his certainty.

"We're going to be heading back to Luca in the morning. So don't be late getting down to the docks or I'll leave your sorry asses behind."

"UNDERSTOOD."

"Hey! We gonna be there for the tournament?" Raijin asked.

Seifer saw no reason they'd stay in Luca that long, but he knew there was no point telling Raijin that so he assured him that they'd buy tickets first thing (all the better to ensure he ended up at the boat on time). With Raijin's cheers still ringing in his ears, he got up to go to bed. The room Fujin had rented for them had three beds that more resembled mats lying on the floor. After a long day, he didn't much mind—just kicked off his boots and tossed them into a pile along with his coat, vest, and socks.

This summoner, he thought as he stretched out to sleep, was an interesting case. Not what he'd expected.

Bossy. Stubborn.

And pretty.

The fact that he'd found her bereft of companionship led him to believe that she'd be difficult to get along with. But he didn't much care. He didn't place much value on social grace anyway and he didn't need her to be a kind and lovely person to summon the final aeon and help him defeat Sin. Plus, she'd shown herself to be competent with both magic and her whip. He respected that.

So in the morning, whether she wanted him there or not, he intended to be at her side on the ship to Luca. After tonight, he decided, he'd never be separated from her again. Not until they reached Zanarkand.


	2. Luca

Chapter 2: Luca

With the waves lapping against the jetty under her feet, Quistis embraced Cid and Edea Kramer. The reality that this might be the last moment she'd ever see her adopted parents again had struck home the night before as she'd climbed into bed and laid there in the darkness, able to hear their hushed voices in the next room. They'd all known this day would come, so they kept strong faces, although Quistis thought she could see the gloss of unshed tears in in Edea's hazel eyes.

"Yevon be with you," Cid said and bowed to her. "Good luck."

Edea handed her a paper bag in which she'd packed breakfast and lunch. "I packed one for Seifer as well," she said and handed over a second one. "Where is he?"

 _Hopefully in a ditch somewhere,_ Quistis thought. "I'm sure he'll be along soon."

They waited there, Cid's arm around his wife's shoulders, as Quistis climbed on board the ship. The captain greeted her and told her to make herself comfortable below deck where a few rooms were available for the course of the journey if she required one. She thanked him and, for the moment, walked around to the side of the ship facing out to sea.

"Squall," she said, surprised to find him there. "What are you doing here?"

He had been leaning against the railing but now he stood up straight. "I'm on business."

"For the Crusaders?"

He nodded.

She looked around and noticed several other Crusaders on board the ship as well. Perhaps half a dozen. Whatever they had planned, it obviously required significant manpower if they were pulling this many people from vulnerable seaside cities like Kilika. It gave her a bad feeling. However, on the bright side, they might be able to travel together along the Mi'ihen Highroad, and in that time Squall might still come around to her way of thinking.

"THERE?" someone shouted from behind her.

"Must be. She matches the boss's description, ya know? And, hey! It's Squall!"

A silver haired woman wearing an eye patch and a bear of a man carrying a wooden staff approached. The latter pushed right past Quistis to grab and shake Squall's gloved hand. Squall jostled back and forth with the man's eagerness.

"Good to see you again, ya know? You're still a legend in Luca. The game hasn't been the same without you. Just...uh...don't tell the boss I said that."

The woman kicked him hard in the back of the leg, making his knee buckle. "QUIET."

A second later, Seifer appeared—following the commotion, apparently. "Good. You found her!" He smirked at Quistis. "Was starting to think you'd left without me."

 _If only._ She glanced between him and the other two. "Are these friends of yours?"

"The posse," he replied. "Fujin and Raijin."

They both bowed to her, their arms sweeping out and back in with Yevon's prayer.

Squall propped one hand on his hip. "These are your guardians?"

"No," Quistis said at the same time as Seifer replied, "Of course! Who else do you think she'd pick? _You_? She'd be lucky to get out of Luca without getting beat up under your care, Pubes. I know. Cuz I'd be the one doing the beating."

"WIMP!" Fujin agreed.

Their insult didn't appear to bother Squall who merely _tsked_ under his breath. Quistis knew he had to be judging her, wondering why she'd chose this brute and his rag-tag posse. The conclusion he'd inevitably draw—that she'd been driven to deep, dark desperation after he'd turned her down—made her want to curl up in a ball and hide.

"It's going to be a long trip. Why don't we all just settle in?" she suggested. Then, remembering the bagged lunches in her hand, she held one of them out to Seifer. "This is yours."

He took it with a frown.

"From Edea," she explained quickly, a blush working up her cheeks at the odd look Squall gave her.

Seifer opened the bag and peered down into it with a boyish grumble of excitement. The distraction gave her a moment in which to escape. She hurried below deck, picked an open cabin, and slammed the door closed behind her. It didn't provide much in the way of amenities: just a bed, a sink, a toilet, a wicker basket with a few local candies inside, and a high window. She had to stand on the mattress to pry the window open and it screamed as if it hadn't been used in years. With clean, clear air drifting in and relative seclusion, she sat down cross-legged on the bed and ate her breakfast. As she licked her fingers clean, she felt the engines kick in. Full and soothed by the constant hum, she pulled off her boots and settled back against the sheets for a nap.

Sometime later (she had no idea how long) she woke. Hungry again, she ate her lunch before stretching, pulling her boots back on and heading back out of her cabin to stretch her legs.

Up on deck, she found that it was now mid-afternoon. Squall had vanished—probably below deck sleeping as well. A group of three children chased a ball past her and a gull squawked at them from where it sat perched among the sails. Refreshed, she took a deep breath of the clear sea air and walked along the rail of the ship looking for dolphins following in their wake. As she came around to the starboard side, she noticed Seifer bent over the rail, retching. She'd never been seasick a day in her life. But Cid got it bad whenever they traveled. So she felt a flash of pity.

"Can I do something for you?" she asked as she joined him at the rail.

He groaned.

Tentatively, she reached out and touched his back. "I've found that a little white magic can help," she offered.

He didn't respond. So, without his consent, she funneled a spell into him. The warm magic running down her arm tingled. When it hit him, she saw gooseflesh rise across the back of his neck.

"Thanks," he said after a moment and stood up straight again. "I do feel a little better."

"Works every time," she said. "Have you been sick since we left port?"

"No," he replied, too quickly. In another person, she would have seen the denial as a way to shut down conversation, to politely hint to a stranger to drop the issue. But with Seifer she thought it stemmed more from an inherent unwillingness to show vulnerability—even over something trivial. It bothered her that (just like Squall) he intended to close off the fallible, human parts of himself from her.

"Why do you want to be my guardian anyway?" she asked him.

"Because I want to fight Sin."

"Being a guardian is about much more. Why not join the Crusaders if that's all you want?"

He scoffed. "Like your little friend, Puberty Boy? No thanks. Any organization that would let him in isn't something I want to be a part of."

"Why not become a summoner yourself, then?"

"I'm not much good at magic. And I doubt Yevon would want me. I don't have the patience for prayer."

"Okay. Why _me_?" she asked, getting to the heart of her original question. "Why sail all the way to Kilika to find a summoner when obviously it makes you sick as a dog. And then, when you get there, throw in your lot with a woman you've never even met? Why pick me?"

He shrugged as if he hadn't much considered the reasons behind his actions. "I guess because I know I can get anyone to Zanarkand, provided they've got a shred of talent."

"Insulting me isn't helping your cause any. And don't think just because Martron packed you a lunch that—"

"I know. I know," he said, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. "You haven't accepted me as your guardian yet. But, you know what, Summoner? Maybe it's destiny. I know that I'm meant to do something big and be famous all over Spira. I'm going to bring the next calm. Which means you must be person I need. Otherwise, it wouldn't have worked out this way."

"You don't strike me as the sort of person who does whatever the universe demands."

"I'm not. But, being religious and all, maybe you should be." He leaned into the railing to stretch out his back, content now that her magic had taken full effect. "Besides, you're not going to find anyone better."

"I don't know you. Or trust you. The relationship between a summoner and a guardian is very...intimate."

He smirked. "I swear, I'll be just as great once you get to know me _intimately_."

 _Oh for Yevon's sake._ The cocky, incorrigible bastard.

"I'll have to take your word for it, because that will never happen," she said. "Find yourself another summoner. Because when we get to Luca, I'm going to be moving on with Squall."

0 0 0

Like a cat stalking its prey, Seifer laid in wait until Squall Leonhart appeared on the deck of the ship once again. Then, he pounced,

"Hey, Pubes!" He punched Squall hard in the middle of the back, right between his shoulder blades. The blow rang up his arm, so he knew it had to hurt. "Stay away from my summoner. Understand?"

Squall winced and spun around, his sword somehow unsheathed in the maneuver so that it pointed straight at Seifer's heart. "What are you talking about?"

"Quistis. Stay away from her. I'm taking her on her pilgrimage and you're going to stay the hell out of my way."

Squall's blue eyes narrowed. "I'm not in your way."

"Yeah? Then why is she saying that you're traveling together?"

"I don't know. Ask her."

"There's no reason for you to even be on this ship aside from her." Seifer knew that they'd grown up together and suspected that they might have a history beyond even that, judging from the way Quistis fawned over him.

"I'm following orders," Squall replied. "Reporting to the northern edge of the Mi'ihen Highroad."

"Crusader orders? That's a lame excuse. There aren't any towns near there. No one who needs protecting."

"It's a big operation," Squall replied. He shifted his hips in that sissy _I'm-about-to-make-a-point_ way that he had and continued, "And I won't have to worry about Quistis when we're done."

 _Interesting..._

"So, what? You jerks are going to defeat Sin all by yourselves?"

Squall lifted his eyebrows and his sword didn't waver from its continued position over Seifer's vital organs.

"Listen, I'm sure whatever you Crusaders have planned is spectacularly stupid. And I don't care much about the details," Seifer said and prodded Squall's blade aside with his index finger. "You do whatever floats your sissy little boat. Just make yourself scarce in Luca. Got it? If I so much as see you talking to Quistis..."

Squall sighed. "Yeah. Whatever."

Only a few years ago, such an attack would have prompted a bare-knuckles fistfight between them. Seifer had been anticipating receiving at least one glancing blow (a reasonable price to pay for ensuring Quistis left Luca with him and not his rival). As he watched Squall sheath his sword and walk away, he wondered if Squall had mellowed that much or if he'd misjudged the man's relationship with Quistis. Now, puzzled, he re-evaluated and came to the twin, satisfying conclusions that Squall was obviously both gay and an asshole.

The ship slowed a fraction as Luca came into view along the horizon. Even from a distance, Seifer could make out the familiar shape of the blitzball stadium. In just a few days time, the tournament would begin—the biggest annual event in all Spira. A few other ships could be seen heading toward shore as well, probably full of players and passengers eager to forget their woes for a few glorious days.

"Hey! Almost home!" Raijin shouted. A cheer rose up spontaneously among the other passengers.

The captain reefed the sails and dropped a sea anchor as they drifted into Luca's busy harbor. Everyone came up from below to crowd the deck, eager to disembark. Seifer easily found Quistis among the throng, her height and her blond hair making her stand out. With Fujin and Raijin flanking him, he came right up behind her, laid a hand on her shoulder and said, "I took care of Squall for you. Nothing to come between us now, Summoner."

"Took care of him? What's that supposed to mean?" she said and ducked out of his grip.

"What do you think? I threw him overboard."

She rolled her eyes and let out an adorably exasperated sigh. "You're a bully. And a lair."

Already, he knew that pressing her buttons was going to become one of his favorite past times.

They disembarked together and Seifer felt a rush of relief the moment his feet touched the dock. No more open water between Luca and Zanarkand meant that, Yevon willing, he'd never set foot on a boat again.

As usual, Luca buzzed with tourists. Over the next twenty four hours, the drone would turn to a roar. A man selling balloons and another selling tickets to the opening match of the tournament shouted at them as they walked down the dock toward the stadium. Seifer swung around, stepping backwards a few paces, to try an get eyes on Squall. But he'd done as Seifer had asked and was nowhere to be found. Quistis too craned her pretty blond head around looking for him. The sad, wistful little breath she let out both irritated and pleased Seifer—one because she still obviously preferred Squall's company and two because now she no longer had the option. She had to pick him.

"Aren't we going to stop and get tickets?" Raijin asked as they passed the stadium. "They go quick, especially the good seats, ya know?"

"We're not going to the game," Seifer told him.

"What do you mean? Like...we're skipping the first to go to the finals?"

"No. I mean we're not going at all."

"What? But...you said..."

"LIED."

Raijin's eyes bugged out and his mouth dropped open.

"You can go to all the games you want during the calm," Seifer told him.

"But I've got bets on this one! I even made some for you an Fu, ya know? Being a guardian can wait for blitzball. Can't it?"

Right now, with Quistis cutting a path through Luca at top speed, her boots barely touching the ground, being a guardian couldn't so much as wait for a pit stop. She paid no attention to the huge billboards playing videos of last year's tournament and walked right past the other docks bustling with Ronso and Hypello and heavily robed people fresh from Bevelle. Seifer had to focus just to keep up with her.

As they entered the town square, Quistis shouldered her way through the tight crowd gathered around the fountain. It quickly closed up behind her. For a second, Seifer could only see a bunch of blitzball players, a group of girls following tight on their heels, and a couple of Al Bhed, their faces covered by goggles and headgear. Seifer wedged his way through them in time to spot Quistis jogging past the fountain, the little fishtail she'd pinned her hair into bobbing with every step.

"Quistis! Wait!"

She glanced over her shoulder with a wicked grin. Then, with a flick of her fingers, she waved and vanished through an opening in the crowd.

Seifer swore.

"Fujin! Raijin! Come on! Our summoner's escaping!"

0 0 0

Quistis took the stairs two at a time leading up into Luca's airy Dollet District—the area of the city high up on the hill, at the entrance to the Mi'ihen Highroad. She knew Seifer and his posse wouldn't be far behind. So once she reached the top of the steps, she took a quick glance around, noticed a shop swarming with tourists, and pushed her way inside. A riot of color met her. Shirts and hats and big, plastic noise-making tubes hung from every rack and covered every wall, team logos and ironed on renditions of famous player's faces meeting her at every turn.

A little boy several steps in front of her drew in a deep, shuddering breath and began wailing while clinging to a pair of Luca Goers sandals, which his mother yanked away and set back on the shelf.

The shop had a cafe attached with a window overlooking the street outside. She ducked inside, nearly running into a man dressed in a long, red coat and a pair of dark glasses.

"Excuse me," she said, not paying him much attention.

"With pleasure, Lady Summoner," he replied, his voice deep and compelling. It bothered her sensibilities somehow and she turned to give him a second glance only to find him gone.

She shrugged off the feeling and waited there in the cafe until she saw Seifer top the stairs, his gray coat flaring out behind him. The sun hit him just so, making him appear luminous and glittering and handsome. In the privacy of the mob, she allowed herself to admire him-a fiend in an underwear model's body. As Fujin and Raijin joined him, he scanned past the shop and the cafe, then said something to them and gestured in the other direction. They jogged away toward the highroad.

Victory had never tasted so sweet.

She quickly pushed her way back out onto the street, meaning to backtrack, find Squall, and then lie low while Seifer tired himself out searching. He'd eventually abandon her as a lost cause and she'd be free to continue her pilgrimage.

As she sprinted toward the stairs, someone grabbed her by the arm. The force of the person's grip and her own momentum wrenched her shoulder and spun her around.

She expected Seifer but instead came face to face with a pair of shiny, impersonal goggles and a respirator mask that covered the man's mouth and nose. An Al Bhed. She could make out no personal features beneath it aside from a black tattoo tracing across the man's cheek and a spiky shock of white-blond hair.

"Please don't scream," he said and pressed a small machina device to her side.

She had no intention of screaming. Instead, she gathered her magic, a spell already on her tongue.

The Al Bhed didn't let her finish. The piece of machina clicked as he depressed a button on it and fired a split second of blinding pain through her ribs, straight to her heart.

Quistis saw a lightning flash and then...nothing but stormy black.

0 0 0

An eerie _whomp_ stopped Seifer mid-stride. He swung to look back the direction he'd come from and saw a half-formed spell (something electrical, judging by the sizzle) evaporate into the air. Underneath it, a familiar blond form slumped into the arms of a short, spiky haired Al Bhed. The man pocketed something, hitched Quistis up over his shoulder and, with a glance around to see if anyone meant to follow him, began hauling her away.

How the hell had Quistis gotten back behind him? Seifer wondered. And what did this Al Bhed want with her?

No time to stand around and speculate.

"Hey! You!" Seifer shouted and drew Hyperion. "Stop!"

The Al Bhed ducked low and took off at a sprint, making for the stairs that would take him out of Dollet Heights and down into Luca proper. Seifer darted after him. Bystanders peeled out of his way, either his shouts of the furious look on his face driving them back. He raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time, but still the Al Bhed kept ahead of him all that way through the crowded town square and onto an empty back road leading toward the wharf. Here, Seifer finally caught up to the kidnapper, snagging a strap on the back of the man's clothes and hauling him up short.

"Don't move, or I swear to Yevon I'll take that chicken head right off your goddamned shoulders," Seifer commanded. To show he meant business, he settled Hyperion's edge on the man's shoulder.

The Al Bhed held up his free hand in surrender.

"Hand her over."

"I can't do that," the Al Bhed replied.

"I'm not giving you the choice." Behind him, Seifer heard Raijin and Fujin's footsteps approach.

If anything, the pressure only made the Al Bhed grip Quistis tighter. "No way! I'm taking her Home where she'll be safe."

Seifer had never killed anyone and he had no interest in starting with this joker. But with Quistis's safety, he wouldn't compromise. He'd do whatever it took to ensure she completed her pilgrimage.

"Come on. Don't be stupid. You're outnumbered three to one."

" _Hud vun muhk_ ," the Al Bhed replied.

It took Seifer's rusty language skills a long moment to work out the translation ( _Not for long_ ) and by the time he did, it was already too late. A deafening bang sent a dozen of seagulls into the air off all the nearby buildings and startled Seifer into letting go of his man. He found himself looking down the barrel of a long, silver shotgun.

Two other Al Bhed stood up the street, a man and a woman. Her brown hair curled up dramatically on the ends, sticking out from underneath her headgear, and, unlike the other two who wore goggles, Seifer could see her distinctly green, swirled eyes.

"These guys giving you trouble, Zell?" she asked.

The first Al Bhed—Zell—scrambled over to them with Quistis still balanced on his shoulder. "They're her guardians!" he shouted and kept running.

"I see. Come on, Irvy!" She waved to the third who still had his gun leveled at Seifer's head. "BOOM!" she added with a giggle.

A blue whirl streaked by Seifer's right side then and connected with the Al Bhed's gun, knocking it upward long enough for Seifer to leap at the man and knock him off balance. The pinwheel, meanwhile, arced up over his head and back around, down into Fujin's outstretched palm.

"GO!" she shouted.

"Yeah! We can handle these two, ya know?" Raijin added.

Sending a wave of acknowledgment over his shoulder, Seifer sprinted off in the direction Zell had gone with Quistis.

The road took him to a section of the docks used more for cargo than public transportation, a sloppy network of huge crates, loose rope, and bales of merchandise for the blitzball tournament. Only a couple of people milled about, mostly supervisors with white clipboards and workers wearing stiff, black belts supporting their lower backs. In amongst all this, Seifer's brightly dressed and utterly conspicuous quarry wasn't difficult to find. He spotted Zell ducking around a blue container with "Bevelle" painted on the side and ran hard to catch up.

Zell obviously intended to take Quistis back to his boat. Surely, he'd have machina there to back him up.

A surge of adrenaline at the thought of going head to head with some giant, mechanical monstrosity gave him a breathless burst of speed and he closed the distance fast. Only a few more pounding steps, his coat flying out behind him, and... _there_.

He tackled Zell, grabbing the other man's legs.

" _Cred_!" Zell swore and crashed down onto his knees. Quistis tumbled out of his arms and landed with a thud on the dock. She rolled once before coming to a stop on her back, one arm thrown out beside her and the other across her chest. Still unconscious but otherwise unharmed.

Seifer clambered back onto his feet, his fist clenched. But Zell proved quicker. He hopped gracefully back onto the balls of his feet, pirouetted around, and slugged Seifer with blinding speed. The air rushed out of Seifer's lungs. Gasping uselessly, he wavered, his eyes watering. And just as he got his wits about him, Zell hit him again.

The little bastard packed one hell of a punch.

A few hasty steps put distance between them. Enough for Seifer to draw his weapon and even the playing field.

"Don't make me kill you," Seifer warned and angled Hyperion menacingly.

"Way I see it, it's me or her," Zell said. "So go ahead and run me through!"

"What are you talking about?"

Zell crouched low, the muscles in his arms bulging through his suit in self-righteous rage. "You know what'll happen to her! What happens to all summoners who fight Sin! There are other ways besides sacrificing people!"

"Ways like what?"

"Machina."

Seifer laughed. "Are you serious? It's because of people like you that Sin's here to begin with."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

So easily manipulated. Too bad. Seifer might have had some respect for this guy otherwise.

He used the opening to finally land his own blow, swinging Hyperion broad side to knock Zell off balance. Then, as the Al Bhed teetered, Seifer swept Zell's legs out from underneath him. He quickly pinned the other man to the dock with the steel toe of his boot, which pressed into the tender, exposed flesh under Zell's chin. Hyperion hovered delicately over his throat.

"Quistis is a big girl. She doesn't need you making decisions for her," Seifer said. "So don't ever mess with me or my summoner again."

Zell's hand's clenched at his sides.

"Got that, chicken wuss?" Seifer prompted, adding some additional pressure with his boot for good measure.

"Yes," Zell ground out.

"Yes, what? I'm a guardian. Don't be disrespectful."

If he hadn't had half his weight on the man's chest, he thought Zell might have leaped up off the dock and pummeled him to death right then. His face turned a shade of red Seifer had never seen on a human being before and the veins in his neck throbbed dangerously. Barely audible, Zell managed to hiss a hateful, "Yes, Sir."

 _Sir Seifer Almasy._

Sure had a ring to it.

Mindful of his opponent's strength, Seifer carefully eased his foot off Zell's chest and allowed him to get back to his feet.

"Okay then. Get going," he commanded with a flick of Hyperion to discourage any further acts of heroism. With evident misgivings, Zell turned to leave, casting a long look down at Quistis as he did so.

Seifer stood guard over her like a trained hound for some time, his hackles up, until he felt certain that Zell wouldn't be coming back. Behind him he saw no sign of Raijin, Fujin, or the other two Al Bhed so he sheathed Hyperion. Squatting down, he gathered Quistis up in his arms. One arm looped under her legs and the other around her shoulders. He gently shifted her until her head lolled against his chest and smiled to himself. Holding her like this made him feel just like a knight from one of the story books he'd read as a kid.

"Hey. Summoner." He shook her, but her eyelids didn't so much as flutter.

Apparently, she'd be out for a while.

"I sorta like you this way," he told her. "So quiet and obedient. No bitching or nagging or talking about Squall." She hung limp, her lips slightly parted, her chest rising and falling in silent intervals. Admittedly, he missed seeing the flush of anger in her cheeks and hearing her sharp retort.

Clutching her close, he walked back the way he'd come.

"Let's go pick up our posse and hit the Mi'ihen Highroad before you wake up."


	3. Mi'ihen Highroad

Chapter 3: Mi'ihen Highroad

As she first came to, Quistis thought she must be at sea. A sense of movement, of rocking back and forth, filled the achy blackness inside her head before anything else. The sensation faded as the rest of her faculties awoke. She didn't remember what had happened, recalling only that she'd been in Luca about to start her pilgrimage. Gradually, she opened her eyes and blinked hard to resolve the watery colors into an image.

A small fire crackled beside her and a heavy blanket lay on top of her, covering her from boots to chin. When she rolled her head to the side, a shadow moved between her and the light. The figure crouched beside her and rested one heavy hand on her shoulder.

"Hey. we were gettin' worried, ya know?"

"Raijin?" she said, her voice raspy and weak.

He sat up a little, cupped his hand around his mouth, and yelled, "Yo, boss! She's awake!"

The shout sent a fresh bolt of pain through her head.

Heavy footsteps approached, crunching across dirt and gravel.

"About time," Seifer said and walked within the halo of firelight.

"What happened?" she asked. She felt like someone had beaten her over the head with a blitzball and then stuffed her mouth with cotton.

"How should we know?" Seifer pushed Raijin aside and flopped down beside her in the dirt. "You tired to ditch us. I found you getting zapped and thrown over some Al Bhed's shoulder like a sack of…well, screws or something, I guess. But I saved you. Not that you'll bother to thank me for it."

"Why would an Al Bhed try to kidnap me?" Quistis had never so much as spoken to one before, let alone had the opportunity to make enemies among them.

Seifer shrugged. "He said something about wanting to take you somewhere safe. Keep you from sacrificing yourself to defeat Sin. Said there were 'other ways.' That Sin could be killed with machina weapons."

"That's crazy."

"I know."

Still disoriented but beginning to grow stronger, Quistis pushed up onto her elbows to take a better look around. The fire beside her marked the middle of of a small camp built in the shelter of an ancient structure, rusty and half buried—a remnant of Spira's past before Sin. The cloudless sky and half-moon above provided the only other light, throwing into relief a silvery track twisting sinuously over the countryside.

"Where am I?"

"The Mi'ihen Highroad."

"How'd I get here?"

"I carried you."

"All the way from Luca?" she asked, astonished. She couldn't see any sign of the city in either direction.

"Yeah. You've been out cold for hours."

As she sat up the rest of the way, she noticed that the blanket covering her was not a blanket at all but rather Seifer's coat. He sat with one bare arm balanced on his knee, the silvery ends of his steel toed boots glinting in the firelight. She ripped the coat off her legs and threw it in his lap.

"You have no right to—" she started, but had to stop and temper her indignation as a wave of dizziness crashed over her, "…no right to take me against my will like this."

"You're kidding. Right? I saved you from being kidnapped by the Al Bhed and taken away forever to some island…and I'm the bad guy? I don't think so."

"I made it perfectly clear to you that I wanted to go on by myself."

"No. You made it perfectly clear that you wanted to go on with Puberty Boy."

She felt her face grow hot. "Where is he anyway?" She couldn't imagine that Squall would allow anyone (either the Al Bhed or her so-called "guardians") to haul her out of the city, unconscious and vulnerable, if he'd still been around to see it.

"Probably off somewhere writing poetry or combing his hair," Seifer replied, contempt thick in his voice. "If you're thinking that he cares too much to let anything bad happen to you, then you're delusional. He doesn't. That's why he's not your guardian. I am."

"For the last time: You're _not_ my guardian."

Seifer scowled at her. "Saving your life and hauling your ass all the way out here was no walk in the park. Some little chicken wuss just about broke two of my ribs, Fujin's yelling even louder than usual because her ears are still ringing from a flash bomb, and Raijin got shot. You could stand to show a little gratitude, Summoner."

She was beginning to hate the way he had of sneering her title as it if were an insult. But with as much as she resented him for his arrogant heavy handedness, he had a point. Raijin stood on the other side of the fire, a white bandage wrapped around his arm, covering a wound he'd apparently received in service to her. She'd seen enough of their relationship to know that Raijin couldn't be held responsible for Seifer's decisions. The poor man seemed to have no interest in being a guardian at all. Yet he'd still taken a bullet for her.

"I could heal that, if you'd like," she told him.

Raijin's head perked up, as if surprised to find her talking to him.

"Come here." She waved him over.

The black expression on Seifer's face made Raijin hesitate. But at Quistis's insistence, he crossed over to her and got down on his knees. She peeled back layer after layer of bandages, some of them still wet with blood and sticking to his skin. The wound underneath didn't look serious, just a graze, but the skin around it had an angry, purplish tint. Raijin winced when she laid her hand on his shoulder. The simple spell she cast worked quickly, a warm blue glow that knitted flesh and muscle. When it finished, she used the bandages to wipe his skin clean.

"There you go. All better." She patted Raijin on the back.

"Wow!" He rotated his arm around once. "I feel even better than I did before I was shot, ya know?"

"That's great. Now you can go relieve Fujin from her watch," Seifer snapped.

"Oh…uh…sure." Ever obedient, Raijin slipped off into the darkness.

"You don't have to be so sharp with them. They're your friends," Quistis said.

"They're my posse," he replied, as if that in any way excused his behavior.

Fujin arrived a moment later and, without speaking, stretched out on the other side of the fire to sleep. Still weak from whatever had knocked her out to begin with, Quistis followed Fujin's lead and collapsed back into the dirt. In the middle of the night, hours away from civilization, she didn't have many other options but to rest up and attack the problem anew in the morning. This time, she thought, she'd try something different. She knew Squall was heading north for Crusader business. And wherever he was, wherever he was _going to be_ , Seifer and his posse could help her get there faster.

Seifer's coat landed heavily on top of her once again.

"Keep it this time," he advised her, his voice soft. "I'll wake you again at first light."

0 0 0

The Mi'ihen Highroad didn't have much in the way of interesting landmarks. The dirt and gravel road snaked through the scattered remains of an ancient city, now reduced to half-buried hulks of rusting infrastructure. Most of Spira contained such relics of the past and Seifer didn't find them particularly interesting. The rest of the landscape consisted of grass prairie filled with flans, flying fiends, and wild chocobos. Nothing to make the day go any faster.

"Who do you suppose is winning?" Raijin asked as they walked, everyone now dirty and hungry and tired. "I bet the Goers are. They always win."

"UNBEATABLE."

"I don't know about that. The Beasts have been training hard this year," Quistis said. "They might surprise everyone and take the cup."

Seifer sensed he had achieved some victory with her. Since waking up on the highroad, she hadn't made a single attempt to escape and had even become friendly with Raijin, who blushed and tittered at her attention like a ten year old boy. But after all the initial trouble he'd had with her, Seifer didn't trust the sudden change of heart. It had come too easy. And he figured she still had something up her sleeve.

By nightfall, they'd reached the travel agency.

The squat building sat along the edge of a ravine, at the bottom of which continued the original path Mi'ihen had followed on his journey to Bevelle hundreds of years before. The new road took an easier, safer route along the top, all of the gaps now crossed by bridges.

An Al Bhed with shoulder length yellow-blond hair greeted them as they walked inside and introduced himself as Rin.

"Two rooms please," Quistis said.

"I'm afraid we only have one free at the moment," Rin replied, his accent thick.

"Why's that?"

"It seems I am full up with Crusaders."

Seifer saw surprise and concern on Quistis's face and knew that she was thinking about Squall. Like always. What the hell had the guy done to earn her trust and affection? Between the girly hair, his sissy two-handed fighting style, and the personality of a soggy two-by-four, Seifer didn't see much to like. Yet Quistis lit up at the merest hint of his presence. Quistis continued to hold out for Squall to become her guardian. She'd probably already even offered him the honor, and he'd turned it down to become one in a lowly legion of boys.

"We'll take whatever you've got so long as we can eat, sleep, and be on our way in the morning," Seifer said.

As Rin punched keys on a piece of machina to process their payment, Seifer heard the skitter and chirp of several chocobos arriving outside. A second later the agency's doors opened and a group of three women walked in. The first—a red head dressed in purple and white armor over a green body suit and a pair of thigh high boots that creaked as she walked—immediately caught Rin's attention.

"Lucil. Welcome back. Done in Luca already?"

She nodded. "There was a bit of an…incident."

"Incident?" Quistis said.

"Fiends attacked the city during the tournament," Lucil explained. "Luckily, Maester Seymour was there. He destroyed them all with his aeon. It was…" She hesitated, her face a shade paler than it had been a moment before. "It was quite impressive."

"Was anybody hurt?"

"Not that I know of. But it certainly underscores the importance of our work here. I rushed back here to get my Chocobo Knights in order. We'll be patrolling the highroad, making sure this sudden surge of fiends doesn't complicate our operation."

Quistis crossed her arms, looking contemplative and concerned. "What exactly is this operation?"

"Operation Mi'ihen. We intend to defeat Sin," Lucil replied.

"How?"

"Through the combined force of the Crusaders and the Al Bhed. We are all gathering on Mushroom Rock Road, between here and Djose. We've been gathering sinspawn and are going to use them to draw Sin in to shore. And when it arrives, we will attack in force."

All the blood appeared to drain out of Quistis's face. Seifer, too, felt a lump form in his stomach. "You're going to try to defeat Sin with machina?"

"We have to do something," Lucil said. "And I think it will work."

It sounded like heresy to Seifer. But, despite his long desire to become a guardian, he'd never been particularly religious. So it struck him as entirely, terrifyingly possible that there might exist some way to defeat Sin aside from the Yevon prescribed final summoning. And if Operation Mi'ihen did prove successful…could he afford not to be there? He hoped Quistis would stick around the area long enough to see. However Sin met its end, Seifer meant to be there. It pained him to think of Squall being the one to drive home the final blow.

As they went their separate ways, Lucil and her knights to their room, Quistis to hers, Raijin lagged back long enough to ask the women, "Hey. Do you know who won the tournament?"

"Oh. Yes." Lucil smiled. "I believe it was the Besaid Aurochs."

For a silent moment, this news washed over them, until, simultaneously, Raijin and Fujin went nova:

"What?"

"IMPOSSIBLE!"

0 0 0

Despite lying in a real bed topped with a fluffy comforter and an abundance of pillows, Quistis didn't sleep well. For a long time, she lay on her side, looking down at Seifer as he slept on the floor beside her bed and wondered how he could rest so peacefully after what Lucil had told them about Operation Mi'ihen. She couldn't think of any way that the maesters in Bevelle would approve of such a thing. It reeked of foolish pride, the same sort of hubris that had brought about Sin in the first place.

How had Squall gotten himself mixed up in such a thing?

More than that, how could he have chosen it over becoming her guardian?

Was it Yevon that meant so little to him, or her?

At least _someone_ wanted to take this journey with her, she thought. It pained her to think of Seifer as her most trusted companion. Still, perhaps she needed to cut him some slack.

In the morning, he roused he from a shallow, fitful sleep by pulling the covers back and saying, "Haul your ass out of bed, Summoner. Time to go."

 _Didn't take him long to use up his slack_ , she thought with an exhausted groan.

Her eyes ached. She sat up to rub them and the bed sank beside her as Seifer sat down to pull on his boots. Across the room, Raijin and Fujin were getting ready to go, too. She hadn't been the only one struggling to make sense of the world all night long. Raijin had tossed and grumbled late into the night, as well.

"I still don't know that I believe her, ya know?" he was saying. "I mean…the Aurochs? I don't even remember the last time they scored a goal."

Through the open window, Quistis could hear the chocobos outside in the travel agency's corral. Seifer saw the direction of her attention and said, "I thought about doing that once."

"Becoming a knight?"

"Yeah. 'Till I realized how much I hate chocobos."

"I sort of like them," Quistis admitted. She hadn't seen many growing up in Kilika outside the thick-necked, hardy breed popularly used to power ship engines. The feral, untamed birds she'd seen on the highroad so far seemed a whole different beast.

On their way out of the travel agency, they grabbed breakfast. Quistis picked up a sticky, sweet roll which she peeled apart with her fingers. Outside, they found Lucil and a handful of other knights running drills with their chocobos. All of their mounts wore plate armor which glinted in the morning sun as the riders moved from one formation into another, their coordination staggering and beautiful. They reminded Quistis of a school of fish, their sides flashing silver as they darted and swarmed.

"The machina angle I can sorta see," Seifer murmured to Quistis. "But Chocobo Knights? What do they expect to do in a battle against Sin? The things can't fly or swim or do anything other than run fast, which only does much good if you're…you know, running away."

Raijin and Fujin immediately agreed, the way they always did.

Their voices got the attention of a young girl, no more than fifteen, dressed in a short skirt and green halter top who stood just outside the agency door watching the knights. She pointed and said, "Aren't they magnificent? I can rent you one for the low, low price of two hundred Gil."

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Actually, I was saying that chocobos are—"

Quistis elbowed him hard in the gut to shut him up. "Two hundred Gil to outfit everybody?" she asked the girl with a smile.

"No. Sorry. Two hundred Gil a piece. But it's a great deal. Trust me. You'll get to Mushroom Rock Road in no time. It's the quickest, safest way to travel the highroad."

The idea of riding a chocobo filled Quistis with girlish glee. She turned to Seifer (the self-appointed keeper of their money) and said, "I think we should do it. We don't want to miss out on any part of the operation." Or miss out on the chance to convince Squall to leave the Crusaders behind before they plunged him headlong into heresy and death. Plus… _chocobo riding!_

Seifer stuffed his hand into his pockets and held them out to show how empty they were. "I don't have that kind of money. I just spent most of it on that room and supplies."

"You could ride double," the girl suggested. "Lots of people do. And our chocobos are big and hearty. They don't mind."

"There. Half-price," Quistis said, her heart begging _please, please, please_!

"Sounds like fun, ya know!" Raijin added.

For a few more minutes, Seifer held out, insisting that they could walk (that it would be good for them). But Quistis held firm. And, perhaps bolstered by her unwillingness to bend, Raijin joined her until, together, they bullied Seifer into handing the girl four hundred Gil. She stuffed the notes into a pocket on her skirt, jogged around the back of the travel agency, and then came back leading two tall, lemon yellow birds already wearing their bridles.

"You can return these to our agent at the end of the road," she said and handed over the reins. "Have a nice trip!"

They decided that, hardy or not, the combined weight of Seifer and Raijin would be too much to ask of a single bird. So Seifer boosted Quistis up onto one of the birds and then climbed up behind her. The chocobo's back felt soft and fluffy underneath her and she sank her hands into the considerable poof of yellow around it's neck until she felt the hard ridge of its flesh and held on. The feel of Seifer close at her back, one arm looped around her to hold onto the reins and the other settled on her hip, made her uncomfortable but didn't diminish her excitement.

Apparently, Seifer had some experience. He nudged the chocobo with his legs and it started forward, first at a walk and then, with another nudge, at a swift trot. The bird's back stretched with every step in its long gait. Seifer encouraged her to move with the bird, forcing her forward and back until she got the hang of it.

Once she did, it felt like flying.

Her heart soaring, she forgot to worry about Squall and Sin and Operation Mi'ihen. The rocky terrain whipped by underneath them as they raced along the edge of a ravine, then over a wooden bridge. The clatter of Raijin and Fujin's bird's talons against the wood followed them across and their mounts chirruped at one another. Her grin made her cheeks ache.

At length, Seifer slowed to a walk, explaining that they'd better "rest the old agency nags" for a while since they had so far to travel.

"This is one of the things I really wanted to do before the final summoning," Quistis admitted to him, her feet dangling free and swinging slowly back and forth, like a child who can't reach the floor from her chair.

"Must be a pretty lame list if this is on it," he replied, but his gentle tone didn't carry any scorn and the fingers on his right hand tightened reflexively on her.

That afternoon, right as the dreamy joy of chocoback riding began to dim in the light of something Quistis had never considered (becoming saddle sore), they arrived at a Crusader road block set up under a huge, ancient arch.

A travel agency agent stopped them first to take their mounts. When Quistis slid down onto the ground, she found her legs stiff and uncertain. She walked up to the Crusaders, feeling more like she stumbled than strode with pride and dignity. One of them reached out with one hand to stop her.

"I'm sorry, but you can't pass through."

Seifer knocked the man's hand away before he managed to touch her. "Why? You've got no right to stop us. We're on pilgrimage."

"Sorry. But that's my orders. It's not safe to pass until the operation is over."

Behind the blockage, further up the road, Quistis could see a chocobo pulling a huge cage that had been draped in heavy fabric. Several people, including two Al Bhed, monitored its progress along the narrow, rain rutted track. On the wind, Quistis could smell the ominous scent of sinspawn—like low tide but hot and sharp. How many did they have collected up there?

"We already talked to Lucil," Seifer tried.

"My orders come straight from the top," the Crusader replied. "I'm afraid I can't break them, even for Miss Lucil. I'll be happy to let you through once the operation is over. In the meantime, you're welcome to remain here or to head back to Mr. Rin's travel agency."

Sensing that they'd get no further with this particular soldier, they fell back to confer among themselves.

"This is crap," Seifer said. "Out of all the people up there, we're probably the _most_ qualified. I say we force our way through. Bring down a little hell fire on their asses."

"Seifer…I'm not going to fight them."

"Then I will."

"No, you won't. Not if you want to go on being my guardian."

He smiled at her. "So you're officially claiming us now?"

"Only under duress," she insisted.

In fact, she felt herself beginning to soften toward him and his posse. But she wasn't ready to freely admit to it quite yet.

Raijin propped his big hands on his hips. "Why won't we just sneak through?"

Startled by the idea that Raijin could have a solid, independent thought unrelated to sports or food, Quistis didn't immediately respond. But after a moment, when his suggestion processed, she nodded.

"They're probably just trying to keep out innocent bystanders. It shouldn't be difficult to get past after dark."

Seifer scoffed. "That'll take hours. My way only takes a few minutes."

"Your way could also get people killed," Quistis replied. "I'm the authority here, and I say we wait. So make yourself comfortable."

Seifer spent the rest of the evening brooding like a child. _No, worse than a child_ , Quistis thought as she spotted a couple with two toddlers also get turned back at the roadblock. Their little boy merely laughed and yelled to his father to watch as he balanced a ball on his head while the rest of the family sat down in the grass.

After nightfall, Quistis and her group crowded together under the shadow of a large tree and waited until the guards began to look weary. A cloud shifted over the moon and Quistis signaled Seifer, Raijin, and Fujin to follow her.

It took frightfully little skill to sneak past. The two men positioned there for the night didn't even stir as they slipped by, and no one noticed their presence or moved to stop them as they walked onto the hard, barren waterfront roadway that passed between the Mi'ihen Highroad and Djose—called Mushroom Rock Road after the huge slabs of bare, round rock.

"Oh yeah," Seifer said, "this is a real solid operation. Consummate professionals. I'm becoming less and less surprised that Puberty Boy is involved."

"What do you have against Squall?" Quistis asked. "You talk about him like he killed your childhood dog or something."

"To be real honest, I can't figure out why everybody seems to like him so damn much. Take you, for instance. It's not like the feelings go both ways, or he'd be your guardian. Right? What's there to like? I think everyone assumes since he's so quiet that there's something deep and tragic and mysterious about him. But there's not. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't have anything to say."

"How do you know each other?"

"Blitzball."

Of course. Everything in Spira came back to one of two things: Sin and blitzball. Maybe if one of them went away, people would wake up and realize there was more to life, Quistis thought. She wanted to give them those options—open up the world for people. Being a summoner had quickly moved past avenging her parents' death. The priests had made certain she had bigger motivations than that. But did Seifer feel the same? Or did he just want to become famous where (obviously) blitzball had failed him?

She was about to ask when someone shouted at them in Al Bhed. Quistis didn't know the language, but the person's tone made their meaning clear: _Stop right there!_

A group of three approached.

"Hey! I know you!" one of them said, a woman. "You're that summoner and her guardians from Luca! You remember, Zell? The one that beat you up?"

In a flash, one of the others launched at Seifer, his fists flying. "You again? I'LL KILL YOU!"

0 0 0

"Explain to me again how this happened," Wen Kinoc demanded. He had his arms crossed and his face screwed up, but he still failed to look intimidating, his small frame and jaunty yellow skull cap giving him a stronger resemblance to someone's aging father than a military leader. Quistis sat before him, squished on a too-small bench beside Seifer, Fujin, Raijin, and three Al Bhed—who she now knew as Zell, Selphie, and Irvine. Most of them were bleeding. Kinoc glared down at them all.

" _Ed'c ymm dryd yccruma'c vyimd—"_ Zell started, still spitting mad, but Selphie elbowed him.

"It was a misunderstanding," she said. "That's all."

"A misunderstanding that led to a fist fight and the summoning of a fire-breathing aeon in the middle of the night?"

Quistis flushed with embarrassment at that.

"Well, sure. But we've learned our lesson now: _don't sneak up on a summoner in the middle of the night!_ Right, Irvy? Zell? It sure was a thing to see though, Mr. Kinoc. Booyaka! Sin doesn't stand a chance!" She pumped her fist in the air.

Kinoc nodded. "Yes. I'm sure it _was_ quite the sight. Because it woke half the camp and every sinspawn we have. It's going to take all morning to settle them down. One even broke out of its cage and had to be destroyed. We'll be lucky if Sin itself didn't see that display."

"Oh, whatever," Seifer said past the ice pack he had pressed against his bottom lip, which was still bleeding and swelling. "You should be glad that you've got a summoner here to _send_ your sorry asses when Sin finishes up with you."

" _Seifer_ ," Quistis hissed. "Shut up!"

Wen Kinoc, Maester of Yevon and leader of the Crusaders had lost some stock in Quistis's eyes just by being complicit in this operation, but he still held considerable power both politically and religiously which she didn't want arrayed against her.

"You three," Kinoc said and pointed to the Al Bhed, "report to your commander, whoever that is. If you're here, that means you've got work to do. And Lady Summoner…"—he didn't look at Quistis as he spoke, glancing at Seifer instead—"you should have enough time to reach Djose before the operation begins."

Or, less diplomatically: _Get out of my sight._

He walked away, off into the temporary base the Crusaders had set up, little more than fabric walls cordoning off an area at the top of a cliff overlooking the sea, an area high enough to be safe from the initial tidal surge that would accompany Sin's arrival. They'd been brought here—up a ravine that forked off the main road and up two elevators—by a dozen cranky Crusaders who'd noticed their skirmish.

It had been rather difficult to miss.

Zell had pinned Seifer to the ground, pummeling him. Fujin leaped into the fray to try to kick Zell off. And Irvine had leveled his gun at the whole lot of them until Raijin tried to wrestle the weapon from his hands. Selphie, with a rather enthusiastic shout, jumped on Raijin's back and clung there, raining blows down on his head and shoulders while shouting, "BOOYAKA!"

Quistis, at a loss for what else to do and genuinely alarmed for Seifer's safety under the twisting, writhing mass of fists and firearms, summoned her aeon.

Fire, brimstone, and Ifrit's angry roar got everyone's attention.

Including, unfortunately, Wen Kinoc's.

"Whew! I thought for sure he was going to have us sent Home," Selphie said. She had her goggles pulled up, resting against her forehead, and Quistis could see the distinctive swirl in her green eyes. She wore a skin tight yellow suit that revealed more than it covered and brown, fuzzy boots. The top of her head only came level with Quistis's chin. She looked to be about sixteen. So young and already at war. Already, Quistis reminded herself with a shake of her head, a kidnapper.

They had explained their good intentions in Luca to her on the long walk of shame to the Crusader's base. And Zell, despite his short fuse, quickly revealed himself as a kind, naive young man.

"Kinoc's not in charge of us anyway," Irvine said to Selphie. Then he turned to Quistis and sent her a dazzling smile, all smooth charm and good looks. A long ponytail hanged down his back and, like Seifer, he wore a long coat—only his hid an arsenal of machina weapons underneath. "Again, we're real sorry about what happened down there, Quisty. Zell's been pretty testy since Luca."

"Why? Did he think we'd just take the kidnapping lying down? Not try to get her back?" Seifer demanded. "And don't call her Quisty."

"I think it was more…umm…your method," Selphie answered for the silently fuming Zell. "We don't think of it as kidnapping. Summoners are being sacrificed to this thing, and it shouldn't be that way. That's why we got involved with Operation Mi'ihen to begin with."

"Right," Irvine agreed. He slipped am arm around Quistis's shoulders. "So, who knows, in a few days you all might be able to head home again. I'll even give you a ride on my ship. Just let me know."

Seifer pushed between them, the ugly expression on his face enhanced by the recent beating he'd suffered. "Hey, cowboy. Hands off. You're not taking her anywhere."

Irvine took a step back, unfazed, and settled his arm around Selphie's shoulders instead. "Sorry, man. Didn't mean to tread on your terriroty."

"I'm not anyone's territory," Quistis said and rolled her eyes.

From a pouch on her suit, Selphie drew out several bottles and began mixing their contents, swirling them and then holding them up to the early morning sun to examine the contents. _Alchemy_. Quistis had heard about the Al Bhed's talent with potions and chemicals but she'd never seen it in action. Fascinated, she watched the girl add a few more drops of something, then nod her head and hand the bottle to Zell.

" _Tnehg dryd_ ," she told him.

Without hesitation, Zell put the bottle to his lips and downed its contents. Immediately, the bruise on his jaw began to fade and the bloody gash above his eye began to close up. He stuck his tongue out and gagged. "Can't you learn to give it a nice grape flavor or something? Rikku does."

"I've been working on cherry," Selphie said, "but it always comes out tasting more like puke. Sorry."

As Quistis bid the three Al Bhed farewell, she saw Seifer and Zell share a heated look. He glared and muttered something under his breath that sounded like "chicken wuss" at the man's back as they walked off, back to their stations along the cliff edge where row upon row of guns had been set up, including one the size of a shall ship balanced on top of a tower still being worked on by a dozen Al Bhed outfitted with heavy tool belts.

Moody, still grumbling through his ice pack, Seifer walked to the edge of the cliff and stood looking out to sea, the wind billowing his coat back.

"Would you like me to heal you?" Quistis asked him.

"No."

"You'd rather suffer?"

"Yes."

"Come on." She rested a hand on his arm. "Quit being so grouchy and let me help you."

He resisted when she pulled his arm down and hissed in pain. Under the guise of examining his injury, Quistis allowed herself a moment to look at him closely—from the errant strand of blond hair that hung over his forehead no matter how many times he slicked it back, to his green eyes and the way his angry expression pinched the scar between them and gave his mouth a sensual pout. She lifted her hand and rested it against his jaw, close to the angry, bleeding, swollen cut. He felt strong and warm and she saw him swallow hard, his throat working.

Her healing spell cured what ailed him in the space of a breath. But she held on for just a bit longer than that.

"Better?" she asked.

He worked his jaw back and forth and licked his bottom lip. "Yeah."

Never had a spell felt so dangerously intimate. So unintentionally meaningful. Her face warm, Quistis turned on her heel, desperate now for anywhere to look except at Seifer. She glanced back over the Crusader's camp and noticed a familiar face walk out of the command center.

Squall.

A dark haired woman dressed in blue walked beside him, laughing, and in an unguarded moment when she wasn't looking Quistis saw a pale little smile flicker across Squall's face, too.

Seifer heaved a sigh as he spotted the couple, too.

"Oh _great_."


	4. Djose

Chapter 4: Djose

Relief mixed with disappointment and dark curiosity as Quistis started across the Crusader camp toward Squall. She could tell that the unfamiliar woman with him held all of his attention, though he refused to make eye contact with her. His lack of feedback didn't appear to deter her; she rocked onto her toes as she talked, and then, with a big smile, waved and walked off toward a red and white tent set up in the shelter of the cliff-face. Squall merely stood and watched her go as Quistis advanced upon him. Seifer's footsteps crunched along behind her.

"I'd really like a moment alone, if you don't mind—" she started, but glanced over her shoulder to find Seifer heading off after the girl.

Frowning, she redoubled her focus on Squall. Whatever Seifer was up to could wait.

"I was hoping you'd be here," she said to get his attention.

"Oh," he said when he spotted her. "Were you the summoner who caused the trouble this morning?"

The question stung. "Um…yeah. That was me."

"You should move onto Djose before the operation," he told her. "It's not safe here."

"That's all you have to say? Aren't you at all happy to see me?"

He looked down to the side, his long hair hiding most of his expression. "You're a summoner. I didn't expect to see you again."

With as heartless as his statement sounded, Quistis had known Squall long enough to read more into it. Growing up with him had meant that she'd gotten good at completing the thoughts he refused to and of predicting what he'd been about to say when he closed up. Right now she supposed that feared losing someone he cared about again and that it gave him no great reassurances to see her here now, in Sin's path. It was a weak thread of hope, but she clung to it.

"This operation," she started. "I know all about it."

"Then you know how important it is," he said. "Especially after what happened in Kilika."

A knot formed in Quistis's stomach. "Kilika?"

"You haven't heard?"

She shook her head.

"I got word as I was leaving Luca. Sin attacked, not long after we left. The waterfront was destroyed."

"Do you know if…?" Her heart raced. "My parents? Or your dad? Ellone?"

"I didn't get details."

A terrible numbness fell over her. After that first long ago attack by Sin, she'd cleaved to the reassuring thought that what remained she could feel secure in keeping. Fate would not take two sets of parents from her. Lightning did not strike the same place twice. Now she imagined her home washed away all over again, floating as driftwood among the bodies. She remembered the sending from ten years ago, her mother and father among the wrapped bundles arranged in Kilika's tidal pool. The image had long haunted her dreams and now resurged fresh.

Squall rested one hand on the end of his sword and said, "I want to kill this thing for good. Not just for then years."

"Even if it goes against all the teachings of Yevon?"

He shrugged. "What's it matter so long as Sin's gone? Right or wrong, the results are the same."

"I know you've got good reasons to be here. But this is taking a big chance. This operation might not work. What if Sin kills _you_ instead?"

He gave her a look she interpreted as: _You, of all people, shouldn't ask me that_. And he had a point. Her willingness to give her own life to defeat Sin rested on the presumption that doing so mean no one she cared about would. So she couldn't reasonably deny Squall that same logic. Especially if their families had somehow survived the attack in Kilika and he still had someone left to fight and die for.

"Will you be on the front lines?" she asked, her heart heavy.

"As close as I can get."

Full of fear for him, she bowed her head. Since Maester Kinoc had ordered her to move on to Djose, she couldn't stay and watch over him during the operation. All she could do, she realized, was pray. Though she wasn't certain what to pray for: that their plan might work, or simply that Squall might come through it unscathed.

"I understand," she said.

"Looks like your guardians are waiting for you." He gestured over her shoulder at Raijin and Fujin. "Did you manage to ditch Seifer?"

A fragile smile crossed her lips. "No. He's still around here somewhere."

Squall nodded. "Good. He's…competent."

With that, he awkwardly dismissed himself and walked away. Quistis found a nearby bench and sat down, needing to catch her breath. Like all of her disappointing conversations with Squall, this one would take some time to process. After a moment, a large shadow covered her feet.

"Want me to go beat him up? Cuz I could, ya know," Raijin said.

"BASTARD," Fujin agreed.

"No. He's not as bad as he seems," she told them. Just guarded and stubborn. An acquired taste, she supposed.

"It just seems like every time he talks to you, he hurts you, ya know?"

"He gave me some bad news is all. Where's Seifer?" she asked, eager to change the subject.

"I think he went to talk to Rinoa," Raijin said.

"That woman? Does he know her?"

"Sure. She's his—OWW!" Raijin howled and grabbed the back of his leg where Fujin had kicked him.

"QUIET!"

Quistis wanted to explain to them that, as her guardians, they could trust her—that she ruled this posse now. But she suspected their most basic loyalty would always rest with Seifer. She'd have to dig up her own answers.

With that in mind, she got up and started toward the tent she'd seen the woman walk inside. A mouth-watering scent met her as she ducked through the flap. Her stomach rumbled and the sight of a group of Al Bhed serving food out of big, shiny pots—helped by a group of insect-like robots that stirred, baked, and fried—almost made her forget why she'd come into the tent in the first place. In the long breakfast line, she spotted Rinoa and Seifer.

"This is just the sort of thing the Forest Owls have to be involved in," she was telling Seifer. "Can you imagine if it works? The changes we could see in Bevelle?"

"You, Zone, and what's-his-face aren't soldiers," Seifer replied.

"Maybe not, but we're fighting for what we believe in."

Rinoa saw Quistis elbowing her way through the line up to them and reached past Seifer to offer her hand.

"You must be Lady Quistis," she said. Rinoa's fingers wrapped warmly around Quistis's wrist and tugged her forward so that she stood between the arguing pair. "I've heard a lot about you."

"It's…nice to meet you. Rinoa, is it?" Quistis replied.

She smiled, her already pretty face softening into real beauty. "So, you've heard about me, too?"

"Oh. No. Actually, Raijin told me your name. Are you a Crusader?"

The breakfast line ticked forward and Rinoa clutched her empty plate against her chest.

"Sort of," she said.

At the same time, Seifer growled, "No. She's only here to make her dad angry."

"Her dad…?"

"Maester Fury Caraway," Seifer supplied.

"I _know_ ," Rinoa said, apparently registering the shock on Quistis's face. "But that's not why I'm here. Not really. I care about Spira. And I want to do what feels right in my heart. I have nothing but respect for summoners and the work you do," she assured Quistis, "but I don't think the teachings of Yevon are as black and white as my dad makes them out to be. My group, The Forest Owls, fight for reform in Bevelle."

"You can want to do what's right all you want, but you still don't have the training for it," Seifer snapped. "You're going to get yourself killed. Ever think maybe that's part of somebody's plan? To get rid of your little group? Let Sin swat you like a bunch of flies?"

Rinoa shook her head. "Maybe I'm more capable than you think. I've changed a lot since you last saw me."

"You mean since last summer?" Seifer scoffed.

"A lot can happen in a year." Rinoa had reached the front of the food line now and held her plate out to receive heaping portions from the Al Bhed servers.

"How exactly do you two know each other?" Quistis asked.

"I guess you could say we dated," Rinoa replied. "In fact, he gave me this." She pulled a necklace out from beneath her shirt, a plain silver chain with a ring on the end. "Right before he left."

With his acerbic wit and arrogant manner, Quistis found it difficult to imagine Seifer had ever been in a committed relationship, let alone with a soft, pretty (if politically radical) woman like Rinoa. It made Quistis wonder whether he reserved his hostility for her alone, whether he wasn't merely a jerk as a state of being but genuinely disliked her. Or maybe he became a different man around Rinoa. Maybe he loved her. And maybe now that he'd crossed her path he would redirect all of the passion and effort he'd been putting into being a guardian into getting her back again.

The thought made Quistis's mouth go dry.

"And…how long have you known Squall?" she asked. "You two seem close."

"Squall? I just met him this morning."

The desire to slam Rinoa's face into the the food counter suddenly assailed Quistis. She'd known Squall her entire life, had been in love with him half that time, and had never gotten him to smile the way this woman had in a matter of hours.

"He told me about what happened in Kilika," Rinoa continued. She reached out and gripped Quistis's hand, squeezing her fingers tightly. "I'm so sorry."

Just like that, the pendulum of Quistis's emotions swung back the other way, leaving her dizzy. Rinoa would have been easy to hate had she been more like Dona—scheming and fully aware of how to leverage her sex as a weapon. But Rinoa possessed a generous heart. Her goodness attracted people. And that was difficult to begrudge her.

"Seifer always told me how much he wanted to be a guardian," Rinoa continued. Her plate full now, they made their way back out of the tent. "I'm glad his dream has finally come true. How did you two meet?"

"Serendipity," Quistis replied.

Rinoa lifted her eyebrows. "Must be meant to be then."

"Sure," Seifer said. "It's a real bonding of souls and alignment of the stars sort of shit."

Rinoa stuck her tongue out at him. "Meanie! Are you still mad at me?"

"Yes. Sin is going to kill you."

"Well…" she said, pausing to take a bite of her food and chew it slowly. "I knew when I started The Forest Owls that it wouldn't all be rainbows and sunshine."

"No one is going to jump in and save you at the last minute, Princess."

"Good." Rinoa lifted her chin a notch. "I don't expect anyone to."

With a pleasant smile and a shallow bow so as not to tip her breakfast off her plate, Rinoa told Quistis how nice it had been to meet her, then cast Seifer a stubborn glare before turning to go on her way, explaining that she had work to do once she finished with her meal. A muscle twitched in Seifer's jaw as he watched her leave. Finally, he breathed out a long sigh and looked down at Quistis.

"How'd your conversation with Pubes go?" he asked. "He finally come around? See the error of his ways and agree to become your guardian?"

"No. He's more committed than ever to being a Crusader," Quistis admitted.

"Dumbass."

She agreed under her breath.

A group of chocobo knights had arrived, Lucil among them. She recognized Quistis and rode over.

"Good morning, Lady Summoner." She nodded to Seifer, as well. "Maester Kinoc has asked me to provide you an escort to Djose. It is too bad that you are not planning to remain in the area, but I am honored to be of service. Which is why I'm assigning Xu, my best knight." She waved forward the woman behind her.

"We don't need an escort," Seifer said.

"Maester Kinoc seems to think that you do," Xu replied. "So don't argue with me. Let's just get out of here."

0 0 0

Watching Rinoa with Squall hurt, not because Seifer regretted leaving her behind in Bevelle but because he hated to see the hint of joy on Squall's face corresponding to the misery on Quistis's. He got the feeling that she'd been ass-over-teakettle for the guy since she'd been old enough to start thinking about such things. And even now, when he'd fallen for another woman…she still cared.

He grabbed her hand, ready to get the hell out of the Crusader camp.

"Raijin! Fujin! Get over here! We're leaving!"

The chocobo knight Lucil had assigned to their case, Xu, followed close on their heels, her bird's beak level with the top of Seifer's head so that he could hear it breathing and the soft, guttural _kweh_ it made whenever Xu petted or praised it. Although he knew she was only following orders, Seifer resented Xu's presence. Kinoc obviously didn't trust them to leave the area as he'd asked. But Seifer had no intention of sticking around. Not anymore.

After seeing the Crusader camp, their forces, and their plan, Seifer had serious doubts that any part of Operation Mi'ihen would succeed. If they managed to lure Sin close in the first place, the Al Bhed up on the cliff face and the Yevonite upper crust in the protected commander center might survive the encounter, but the men on the ground—the Crusaders and the chocobo knights and the foolish girls rebelling against their daddies…they didn't stand a chance. It might have appealed to him once. He'd always been eager to risk life and limb for fame and fortune. But as a guardian, he couldn't allow Quistis to wager hers. He wanted her safe, deep inside Djose temple when Sin arrived here.

As Raijin and Fujin ran across the camp to join them, Quistis's hand tightened on his. He found her looking up at him, her blue eyes narrowed in a way which let him know that she was attempting to peer through him, to all the motivations and the secrets and dark thoughts he kept locked beneath the surface. He didn't know whether she saw anything but she continued to hold tight. He wanted to pick her up and shake her and tell her that she didn't need Squall anymore.

They all piled onto the elevator together, space tight to allow for the chocobo.

"So, Xu," Quistis said, "you're really the best knight here?"

"Yep. Right behind Miss Lucil," Xu replied, sounding reverent when she said her commander's name. "I grew up in Luca and learned to ride before I was even tall enough to reach the stirrups. I've spent every second of my life working to get here."

Seifer could easily imagine Xu as a butch little thing wearing a semi-permanent milk mustache and playing war games.

"I know this must be a frustrating assignment for you," Quistis told her. "I'll do my best to make sure we don't keep you from your duties for long."

Xu smiled. "Thanks. I appreciate that."

With Xu around to ride point, flushing out fiends and finishing the smaller ones off on her own, the trip along the top of the ravine leading from the command center back to the main road went quickly. A group of Crusaders and a huge robot guarded the entrance. No one but the robot noticed their group approach. Everyone else stood shading their eyes, peering south toward the highroad.

"What's going on?" Quistis asked.

"Dunno," one of the Crusaders said. "Looks like somebody important just arrived."

Down the road, towering over the heads of everyone, Seifer made out the blue form of a Ronso—small for his race, but still a monolith among his companions. His horn had been shorn off at some point and he carried with him a dangerous looking halberd.

Also among the group, Seifer spotted a blitzball player her recognized: Wakka, team captain of the Besaid Aurochs. Coming off a successful run for the cup, if the rumors were to be believed. Next to him walked a woman who appeared to shop in all the same stores as Squall. (And, judging from the cold expression on her face, Seifer thought they might even be related.) Her fur lined, many belted outfit barely covered her ample breasts.

"Wow," Raijin said, his mouth hanging open. "Seifer, check it out. That lady's got one hell of a—OWW!"

Fujin and Xu had both smacked him.

Quistis, who apparently didn't care whose breasts Raijin ogled, stood up on her toes to see past everyone. "Is that Maester Seymour?" she asked, sounding scandalized, as a wild-haired half-guado stepped to the front of the group.

"Maybe Bevelle has decided to support this operation after all," Seifer suggested. He'd spent enough time in Rinoa's company to know that Yevon's priests did not always practice what they preached. Maesters most of all.

"Just Maesters Kinoc and Seymour are with us," Xu replied. "We've been expecting him."

A shout rang out from among the gathered crowd as he stopped and acknowledged them: "All hail Maester Seymour!"

He held up his inhuman, long-fingered hands. "Brave Crusaders of Spira!" he began, his voice more feminine and light than Seifer had expected. "Protectors of all Spira, believe in the path you have chosen!"

"I don't believe this," Quistis muttered under her breath.

Xu didn't appear to hear. She nudged her chocobo to one side and pointed. "See the girl with him? In the dark skirt with the yellow bow? That's Lady Yuna…High Summoner Braska's daughter."

Which would make the motley crew her guardians, Seifer supposed. He sized up the competition and decided that (aside from the Ronso and a man dressed in red bringing up the far rear of the group) he was unimpressed. Lady Yuna had a hell of a pedigree and had certainly gathered a following, but she looked delicate and naive. She reminded him, he decided, of Rinoa.

"Is she here to help with the operation, too?" Quistis asked.

Xu shrugged. "Maybe. I hadn't heard that any summoners would be involved. But perhaps Maester Seymour was able to convince her."

"Better them than us," Seifer said.

Rather than wait around and listen to the rest of Seymour's speech, they headed out. Ahead of them, the road turned to bare rock banked on one side by ocean stretching forever to the horizon. Only sparking elemental fiends and scrabbling lizards made their home here.

Xu kept them moving at a blistering pace.

"Keep up!" she barked back at them. "I've got to make this whole ride back before the operation starts!"

"I'm going as fast as I can! You can't just whip me 'til I run like Nida there," Seifer shouted, reading the chocobo's name off the embroidered patch on its saddle.

Xu leaned over and ran her hand down her chocobo's neck. "One of the many reasons I continue to prefer Nida here to all other men," she said. The bird preened happily underneath her.

They encountered huge groups of fiends on the road, all of them unusually aggressive, perhaps made bolder by the nearby presence of sinspawn. None of them gave the group much trouble. Quistis could take out a flock of flying fiends with her aeon and whip alone. Still, the encounters did slow them down, and Xu pushed them even harder.

"Are you worried about Rinoa?" Quistis asked him along a relatively quiet stretch of rock.

"Not really."

"You care about her. Don't you?"

Seifer's relationship with Rinoa had encompassed a single summer. He'd been seventeen. She'd just turned sixteen and had seen him as a whole new way to rebel against her father. So he'd promised to take her far away from Bevelle, kissed her along the promenade leading toward Macalania Woods, and then left her behind when the ship arrived to take him back to Luca. Since then, he hadn't thought about her much. They'd never been a great match—her too sweet and needy, him too focused on his dreams. But he didn't like seeing her participating in Operation Mi'ihen. Of course, he didn't have any power to change her mind either.

"Rinoa's got a way of getting rescued in the nick of time," Seifer said. "I'm sure Pubes and the Al Bhed Super Squad will keep her safe."

At that, Quistis bit her bottom lip and nodded.

The tide came in as they walked, the waves splashing against the rocks and washing up over the road. Xu's chocobo, Nida, didn't like the water flapped and chirped every time a rogue wave wetted his talons. "Finally! Thank Yevon!" Xu said when the bridge leading to Djose appeared in the distance.

Seifer drew in an amazed breath as they crossed into sacred space.

Djose Temple looked like it had been built from the pieces of a hollowed out mountain. Aside from the door, the entire building sat covered in huge slabs of rock, all of them trembling and humming as sparks crackled through a haze of dust and marine fog. The ground rumbled under his feet and the air smelled how he thought the inside of a thundercloud might. Small, cat sized monkeys scampered along the bridge and up into the surrounding rocks, their grasping hands and long tails allowing them to perch even through the disconcerting ground tremors.

"The outer shell of the temple is made from a special type of mushroom rock," Quistis explained. "When a summoner is inside praying to the fayth, they fly apart and swirl around the whole temple."

The ambient charge made the hair on Seifer's arms stand on end.

"I like it," Raijin proclaimed. "Seems homey, ya know?"

Quistis gave him a puzzled look. "Are you serious?"

"Raij is a lightning fan," Seifer explained. Aside from a blitzball game, Raijin liked nothing better than a bone rattling thunder storm. He stood looking up at Djose Temple as if he'd finally found his god, the electricity reflected in his big, brown eyes.

"If you no longer need me…" Xu said, her chocobo sidestepping underneath her, the both of them ready to get back to their mission.

"Of course. I'm sorry." Quistis bowed. "Good luck. I hope we'll see each other again."

Xu grinned. "I'm sure we will. Once Sin is dead!" She waved and took off at a gallop, throwing up a plume of dust in her wake.

Djose had a travel agency of its own, but Quistis walked right into the temple so Seifer followed. Inside, other than the blue balls of electrical energy perched on pillars, the temple looked much the same as the one in Kilika—a round room filled with statues of high summoners and sooty wall sconces that spread just enough light to create long, dark shadows. A priest approached them, young and pale.

"I am Lady Quistis." She bowed to him. "And these are my guardians."

He bowed back. "Welcome to Djose. If you would like to rest, we have room available," the priest told her.

Aside from their short break at the Crusader camp, they'd been traveling non-stop since leaving the Mi'ihen Highroad travel agency, so Quistis told the priest they would accept a meal before continuing on. For the priests, who apparently had grown accustomed to feeding travelers with a long road behind them and an even longer one ahead, this translated into a veritable feast. Raijin ate himself into a stupor and spent the last half of the meal lying prone on the floor, groaning and rubbing his belly.

"IDIOT," Fujin said and jabbed at him with the toe of her boot.

"Ohh man. Don't do that, Fu. You're gonna make me sick, ya know?"

"GOOD!" She jabbed him again.

Across the table, Seifer saw Quistis smile at the two, the expression half hidden behind her hand as she chewed on a piece of honeyed cake. Her tongue darted out to clear some of the sweet substance from her lips and she licked some off her thumb as well. It made Seifer's stomach tighten.

When they finished eating, Quistis stood up and stretched out her back, her lithe body bending like a cat's.

"I'm going to go through the Cloister now. I'd get some sleep first, but I'd like to be done by the time…" She drifted off, not completing her thought. Seifer knew she had to be imagining Squall's head separated from his body by some sinspawn and her not being there to magically fuse it back on. "You guys don't have to come with me," she finished.

Raijin got to his feet. "No way. We're guardians, ya know? We're going with you."

"DUTY," Fujin agreed and crossed her arms.

Seifer leaned back in his chair, pleased. "You're not leaving us behind this time, Summoner. And you sure as hell ain't doing this alone anymore."

"Okay." She looked away so he couldn't see her expression. "But stop calling me that."

"What?"

"Summoner."

"Why? It's what you are. It's accurate."

"Yes. But it's also so…oh, for Yevon's sake. Never mind. Just…come on before I change my mind."

0 0 0

The fayth at Djose Temple proved more agreeable than the one in Kilika; Quistis took half the time praying as she had back home before the aeon consented to come at her bidding. She learned his name, Ixion, and said it to herself, exploring the taste of it on her tongue, as she got to her feet and rejoined Seifer, Raijin, and Fujin in the antechamber. Again, lightheadedness overcame her and she had to pause, gripping the doorframe.

"HELP?" Fujin asked.

"No. I'm fine." Quistis dabbed sweat from her brow with her sleeve.

Raijin stood yawning and rubbing his eyes as if he'd slept the entire time. And though he hid it better, stifling his yawn so that his jaw trembled, so did Seifer. Lack of sleep and days of travel hadn't bothered her until before. Now, suddenly, she wanted to curl up here, deep in the temple where it was quiet and safe.

"Ready to go back?" Seifer asked.

She nodded.

Raijin led the way out of the cloister. He looked back fondly on every room and heaved a dramatic sigh when they went to exit into the temple again. "I'm gonna miss this place, ya know? I might come back here after Sin and everything and stay a while. You wanna come with me, Fu?"

"NO."

"What? Why? I mean, there's not bound to be a cooler place on the whole pilgrimage. Whoa! Except, ya know—shit, I almost forgot about it. The Thunder Plains? Right, Fu? Yeah. You're right. That's definitely going to be better."

Raijin shoved open the doors to the temple, and they found the priests greeting another group of travelers: two men and a boy, the oldest of which wore a summoner's bow around his middle and a high, short ponytail. "Ah," he said and gestured expansively toward Quistis as she descended the cloister steps, "you must be the reason the mushroom rocks were circling as we arrived. Lovely to meet you. I am Isaaru and these are my guardians, Pacce and Maroda."

Pacce looked about eight years old. He gave her a gap-toothed grin and an enthusiastic thumbs up. "Isaaru's my big brother," he told her. "We're going to defeat Sin!"

"Not if we get there first, pipsqueak," Seifer said.

Isaaru laughed softly. "Yes. I suppose that's true. We were just making arrangements to stay here for the night. Are you going to be moving on right away?"

"Not immediately," Quistis replied.

"That's good. We heard some frightening rumors on the way here."

"Rumors?" she asked, curious if he meant Operation Mi'ihen.

"Yes. Of summoners mysteriously disappearing on pilgrimage," Isaaru continued. "Almost as if they'd been snatched up."

Seifer laughed and crossed his arms. "You don't say? Well, no need to worry about us. I've got Quisits covered against anything that might try to _snatch her up in the night_." He sounded both cocky and threatening, as if he had concerns that Isaaru himself might attempt something untoward in the night.

"Thank you for the warning," Quistis told him. "We'll be careful."

The temple had limited space. Isaaru and his brothers had already settled in to the visitor's quarters, leaving just an empty priest's cell available for Quistis. She didn't mind, but the tiny room left no space for Seifer and his posse, even if they wanted to sleep on the floor. Reluctantly, they agreed to stay at the travel agency outside. She knew the arrangement bothered Seifer and she heard him grumble under his breath as he left, but her exhaustion caught up to her and she collapsed onto the foam-mat bed on the floor without even bothering to take her boots off. She heard Pacce laughing in the room next door as she fell asleep.

Later, a shout roused her from the dark abyss. She rolled over in the blackness, groggy and heavy and confused.

"What happened?" she heard Isaaru ask. "My goodness. Are you okay?"

Someone cried out in pain. "No. Please…help me. It was Sin!"

In a blur of motion, Quistis got to her feet and grabbed her whip off the floor. It slithered along behind her as she ran out of her room and out into the temple, the electric light searing onto the back of her retinas a picture of Isaaru standing over a young Crusader, the man's arm hanging at an odd angle—both dislocated and broken—and a black, bloody gash running up the side of his face.

The door flew open and several others rushed in. All of them wounded. Some hauling along those unable to carry themselves, Al Bhed mixed with Crusaders.

"Sin's here? Right now?" Isaaru said as he pushed his sleeves up, magic humming at the end of his fingertips.

Quistis pushed against the flow of incoming wounded to get out the door. The sun not yet set, and the lurid yellow light stung as she ran out into it. The air smelled thick with Sin just like Kilika had the day her parents died and she could see sinscale glinting in the waves washing up to shore. She swore, blinked back the tears welling up in her eyes, and ran headlong toward the bridge until something snagged her hard around the waist. Her boots scraped to a stop.

"What do you think you're doing?" Seifer yelled in her ear.

"Sin's attacking! I've got to help! Let me go!"

"No."

The back of her head struck his chin as she struggled against his grip and it only made him hold her tighter.

"There's nothing you can do," he growled, his hand forming a fist in her shirt. "They've already lost."

"I can help. I've spent my whole life preparing to face Sin. Let me go!"

"No. I won't let you die for this."

In the distance, she saw the flash of an explosion and the resulting black cloud billow up into the sky. She knew by the time she got there, even running as fast as she could, Sin would be gone…fate's dice already cast. Was Squall already dead? She sank against Seifer and he ran one gloved hand over her hair, smoothing it back from her face and cradling her head against his chest.

"Lady Yuna and Maester Seymour are both up there," he told her. "Whatever a summoner can do to help, they've got it covered."

"I can't just sit here and do nothing."

"I don't think you'll have to wait long."

Another explosion made the ground vibrate under their feet and drew terrified screams from the handful of injured Crusaders inside the temple. Squall remained out of her reach, but she could at least help them, she realized.

She told Seifer her intentions and he held her hand all the way back into the temple, where Isaaru crouched tending to the worst injuries while those not on the verge of death suffered under the untrained hands of the priests and their comrades. They'd been caught in a tidal wave, she learned as she knelt beside an Al Bhed with a mangled leg. The water had dashed them against the rocks, sucked them out to sea, and then washed them up again.

Seifer, Fujin, and Raijin did the best they could with salves and bandages while she worked. By the time she and Isaaru had everyone stabilized, her arms ached from casting. He smiled at her from across the temple and blew a wisp of auburn hair out of his eyes.

The sun sat halfway in the ocean when Quistis walked outside to wash her hands. Raijin worked the pump for her, bringing up a stream of ice cold ground water that turned her fingers red.

Straggling survivors of the Operation had been trickling in over the past half hour. So far, Squall had not been among them. Nor had Rinoa. But as Quistis dried her hands on her skirt, she spotted Lucil coming toward the temple, on foot but in one piece.

"Lady Quistis. I am glad to see you made it here safely."

"Do you know how many survived?" Quistis asked.

Lucil shook her head. "Not many. When Sin arrived it…sent out a charge that vaporized everyone on the beach. And when we opened fire on it, it brought up some kind of shield. All of the guns were destroyed. None of our chocobos survived. Everyone still alive is coming here. Lady Yuna has sent the rest to the Farplane."

Quistis's fingernails bit into her palms as she clenched her fists. The Crusaders fell under Maester Kinoc's purview, which in her eyes made him culpable for every death. How could the priests in Bevelle allowed him to do this? Did they even know? For the sake of her soul, she hoped not.

"Are the priests willing to take in survivors?" Lucil asked.

"Yes. But only for a short time. They're saying you'll all be excommunicated," Quistis replied.

"I see." Lucil turned and gestured back up the road. "I know you had friends in the operation. The road is clear if you want to go back and look for them."

Quistis thanked her for the news. Then Lucil continued on toward the temple with the two bedraggled knights accompanying her.

The squawk of a chocobo startled them all, and a flash of yellow screamed past Quistis, skidding to a cloudy stop in front of the gathered knights.

"What the hell was that?" Seifer said though fits of coughing.

"Miss Lucil!" shouted a familiar voice. The dust settled enough for Quistis to make out Xu on top of the chocobo, both of them wet with sea spray. Xu dropped her mount's reins and swung out of the saddle in one fluid movement. "You're alive! I looked everywhere for you! Sweet Yevon…I thought you were dead."

Xu grabbed Lucil, hugged her, and then (much to Quistis's surprise) kissed her commander hard on the mouth.

"Whoa…" Raijin covered his eyes.

Quistis turned away, afraid the knights' sparking emotions might light hers as well. She needed all the control she could muster for what the rest of the night would surely entail.

"I'm going to go find Squall," she announced. "Or…what's left of him."

This time Seifer didn't stop her.


	5. Moonflow

Chapter 5: Moonflow

Darkness fell as Quistis and her guardians walked back along the length of Mushroom Rock Road. They passed a number of Crusaders making their way to the sanctuary of the temple, but not half as many as Quistis expected to see. She struggled to fathom the idea that only a few lucky survivors remained from the busy, bustling camp she'd stood in that morning. When she crossed paths with Yuna and her group, neither of them stopped to talk. Quistis didn't know what to say to Yuna anyway: reflect on how Yevon's teachings had predicted this operation's failure from the beginning, or merely thank her for sending the souls of the dead? It wasn't a conversation Quistis supposed either of them wanted to have. So they smiled and nodded to one another and passed along their way, Yuna continuing her pilgrimage, Quistis now traveling backward along hers.

When they arrived back at the ragged beachhead of Operation Mi'ihen, they found that the Al Bhed had pulled several ships in close to shore, casting it in stark whites and deep shadows. Most of the bodies had already gone. But Quistis could see the impressions in the sand where they'd fallen—deep troughs stained black with blood.

Seifer swore under his breath. "I knew it'd be bad, but this is a total massacre."

"DECIMATED," Fujin agreed.

Although he'd made a big show of being unconcerned for Rinoa, Quistis saw him slick his hair back from his forehead and swallow hard as he looked over the destruction.

The Al Bhed had set up a mobile camp along the road where they appeared to be gathering their dead in one tent and healing the living in the other, using alchemy rather than white magic. Quistis started toward the latter. A flicker of hope passed through her when she saw Selphie among the alchemists, handing out her foul tasting potions to reluctant patients.

"Heyyy!" she said with a huge grin and a wave when she saw them. "You're alive!"

"You, too," Quistis replied.

"Sure. I'm a munitions tech. I make things go boom but I'm not usually around when they do. I was safe on our ship at sea when Sin attacked."

"How about Zell and Irvine?" Quistis asked. "Did they make it?"

Selphie nodded and rolled her eyes. "They're okay. But you wouldn't know it from talking to them."

"That's good to hear," Quistis said, though in her analytical mind Irvine and Zell's survival lowered the statistical odds of finding her own friends alive. "I'm actually here looking for someone. Maybe you can help me. A woman wearing a blue duster and a man with a scar across the bridge of his nose…like Seifer's."

Selphie propped one hand on her hip. "Do you mean Rinoa and Squall?"

"Yes! Have you seen them? Are they alive?"

"Actually, they're out with Irvy and Zell…looking for survivors."

Quistis reached out and steadied herself against the medical tent's main pole as relief turned her legs liquid.

"You're not even going to believe _why_ they're all alive," Selphie continued as she began mixing some new potion for an uneasy looking man cradling an injured arm. "I wouldn't believe it either except Squall confirmed the story, and he doesn't seem the type to just make things up."

"Whatever he told you, I'm sure it's the truth," Quistis said, not really caring to hear the story now that she knew the end.

"Well, from what I _hear_ ," Selphie went on anyway as she handed her patient the bottle, "before Sin even got here, all of the sinspawn that the Crusaders collected fused together into this massive _super_ sinspawn. It broke out of its cage and practically destroyed the whole camp. Irvy says it broke the gun he and Zell were manning straight off its housing. Freaking five inch bolts—the thing sheared them off like cheese. So they were running for cover when they heard a scream. Rinoa. She'd been swept over the side of the cliff and, the way Irvy tells it, was hanging on there by a nail. They couldn't get to her. All the debris from the gun and unexploded ammunition was in the way. But then Squall came running by, on his way down to the beach where I guess he was stationed. So Irvy and Zell started yelling at him to save Rinoa, but— _can you believe it?_ —he just kept on going."

"I can believe it," Seifer grumbled.

"Well, eventually he turned back and saved her. Probably saved his life, too. Everyone down on the beach where he would have been otherwise died in the attack."

Seifer nudged Quistis with his elbow. "There ya go. Told you Rinoa has a way of getting rescued. Girl's a cockroach. Bet she'd even survive an asteroid strike."

"They were both scraped up pretty good," Selphie added with a glance in Seifer's direction. "But I got them all patched up. And they both agreed to stay behind and help us out here. Rinoa said something about…an owl's duty or something. It sounded crazy, whatever it was. But any port in a storm. Right?"

"What about the super sinspawn?" Seifer asked. "It's not still in the area, is it?"

"Oh no. Of course not. Lady Yuna and Maester Seymour defeated it."

Not for the first time, Quistis wondered how Seymour and Yuna knew one another. Seymour wasn't old enough to have known her father, nor did he appear to be part of Yuna's circle of guardians (at least, he hadn't been with her on the road to Djose). Yet, somehow, they knew one another well enough to have arrived together. To fight together. They made a powerful couple, Quistis thought, both figuratively and literally.

While they waited in the medical tent, Quistis tended to some of the wounded with her magic while Fujin, Raijin, and Seifer helped with the heavy lifting involved in clean up. The Al Bhed were salvaging every part of the equipment they'd lost, loading hunks of scrap metal and bits of machinery into their deep bellied ships. At length, Squall and Rinoa returned, hauling an injured man between them. When Rinoa spotted Seifer on the beach, she released her burden onto Squall and ran across the sand to wrap her arms around Seifer's neck.

"I was so worried you didn't make it to Djose in time!" she told him.

Quistis looked away, recalling the similar reunion between Xu and Lucil and not wanting to see it again with Seifer and Rinoa.

Squall continued on into the tent where he handed off the injured man and then glanced bashfully at Quistis.

Quistis didn't care if it made him uncomfortable. She walked over to him, drew him close, and buried her face against the fur collar of his coat. For a long moment, he stood stiff in her arms. Then, slowly, a tentative hand came up to settle against her back. Gentle. Uneasy. But genuine…filled with more affection than she'd seen from him since before his mother died. It made her want to cry.

"It's good to see you," she said and released him. No lectures.

"You too," he replied before pulling out of her grip to join the others. Rinoa stood warming her hands over the flames of a wide campfire, and Squall walked over to stand next to her, looking casual to all the world except Quistis.

"I guess I've got no choice but to head back to Bevelle now," Rinoa was saying. "Try to pick up the pieces and put the Forest Owls back together. Without Zone and Watts, I don't know if…" She trailed off and dashed tears from her cheeks.

"We're heading that way. So you could travel with us if you want," Quistis offered, pity getting the best of her. "The road's not safe."

"I don't want to slow you down…"

"You won't."

A small, grateful smile tugged at the corners of Rinoa's mouth. "Okay, then. Thank you." She turned to Squall. "How about you? Are you going back to Kilika?"

He dug in the dirt with the toe of his boot and looked across the fire at Quistis. "I still want to fight Sin," he admitted.

"Wait a minute," Seifer said. "You want to come with us? After all the grief you've caused me over this, now all of the sudden you want to be a guardian?"

"LATE!"

"Yeah. That ship has passed, ya know?" Raijin added to the refrain.

"It's not up to you," Squall reminded them.

Everyone turned and looked at Quistis. Thankfully, she didn't have to respond right away since Irvine and Zell chose that moment to reappear, the both of them grease stained and tired, Irvine favoring his right leg as he walked.

"Lady Quistis!" Zell sounded surprised to see her. "I'm glad you made it out okay. But…why are you back here? Aren't you worried about being excommunicated?"

"I'm more worried about what you bozos will try to do to her than the Yevonites," Seifer said. "We heard about your exploits up at the temple. About summoners vanishing all along the road to Zanarkand."

"Wasn't us," Zell snapped and clenched his fists.

"We've been busy here," Irvine added. "It's probably either Brother or Rikku who are responsible for the other summoners."

"I'd think this whole experience would have changed your attitude," Seifer replied.

"On summoners? No way," Zell replied, defiant. "And if you'd seen what I have, you'd agree. Nobody should have to face that monster on their own, even if they don't intend to come away alive. I don't see how you can say you care about what happens to her and still be dragging her off to Zanarkand."

Unfazed, Seifer responded, "Because _someone_ has to save all your sorry asses. Might want to show some appreciation."

"How's this for appreciation?" Irvine said and gestured out toward the boats. "It's a long walk back to Djose. So how about you all stay the night on my ship, and I'll give you a ride on a hover all the way to the Moonflow in the morning."

"I already risked my life once to keep her off your ship," Seifer pointed out. "You think I'm going to let her on it now?"

Irvine held up both hands, palms out. "It's no trick."

"I think you can trust them," Rinoa said and looped her arm through Seifer's. "I've gotten to know them a bit. And I just don't see them breaking their word on this. Plus, they're not going to try anything with both you and Squall around."

Again, all eyes turned to Quistis. A lifetime spent mostly in the company of priests and prayer hadn't prepared her to navigate this social minefield, so she hesitated, wracking her mind for some solution that would please everyone. "I think," she finally started, "we will make our own camp but take you up on the ride." Give Seifer the control he craved, but still make up the time they'd lost to Operation Mi'ihen.

Everyone agreed, and Seifer nominated himself to pick out a campsite. He walked a long way through the dark, away from the lights of the Al Bhed ships and toward the rising moon, before he felt satisfied. "Someone should take a watch," he said as Raijin started a fire. "I already got some sleep in Djose. So I'll go first."

"I'll take the second," Squall said.

Quistis had rested up at the temple, so she sat awake with Seifer for some time, warming her toes by the fire while everyone else made themselves comfortable and drifted off. Behind them, back along the beach, the pace of work at the Al Bhed camp slowed to a crawl as they too settled in for the night.

"I'm surprised you're taking them up on the hover offer," Seifer said to her. He leaned back on his elbows, facing out away from the fire so that he was looking right at her, the shadows hiding nuance in his expression.

"Why?"

"The whole 'no machina' clause."

"Oh…" She didn't want to admit that Maesters Kinoc and Seymour had made that particular rule seem somewhat less hard and fast to her. "It's just a hover," she finally said. "Probably not much different than a boat. And that's always been acceptable."

"Seems to me that Yevon doesn't mind if his followers bend the rules, so long as they're part of the ruling class," Seifer replied.

"You know, all this time that I've been traveling with you…I haven't been able to work out whether you're a believer or not," Quistis said and leaned in close so that she could see him better. "You've been dreaming about being a guardian for years, yet you don't seem to have much respect for priests or maesters."

"It's hard to respect a bunch of hypocrites. People like Seymour and Kinoc who stand there, representing Yevon, and send people to their deaths like that. Then they have the balls to excommunicate all the people who survive? I bet they're both already back in Bevelle, reporting that the damned Forest Owls have been taken care of and so have those pesky Crusaders. They've had power too long and I don't trust them."

"People will always be fallible. Sometimes it's the idea you have to believe in, not the people preaching it," Quistis replied. "I guess I just don't understand how you can embrace this quest without a whole lot of faith."

"I have faith. Just not in Yevon."

"What else is there?" Quistis asked. Not much else in Spira offered hope.

"I have faith in myself."

Quistis laughed. "Well, that's always been obvious."

"And in you," he added. "Me wanting to be a guardian? That has a whole lot more to do with wanting to be in the thick of battle, of wanting to devote my life and my sword to someone who…" Here he paused and collected himself. "You and me, we can defeat Sin. I believe that."

They sat and stared at each other while Quistis digested what he'd said, the crackling fire and Raijin's soft snoring the only thing breaking up the silence. She didn't know if she admired the purity of his motives, the simplicity of his confidence, or if she pitied the fragility of his worldview. If she died facing Sin, what would happen to him? She feared that without the idea he had of himself as a hero, as Spira's savior, the rest of him might crumble.

"Go to sleep, Summoner," he told her and broke eye contact. She got the impression he knew that she was attempting to crawl inside his skull and objected to having her there. "I can't keep a proper eye out for the Al Bhed with you sitting here yammering at me."

This time, she did as he asked.

0 0 0

Quistis woke the next morning to Squall's gentle nudging. He didn't exchange any pleasantries with her, just moved on to the next sleeping bundle—Rinoa, who lay curled in the fetal position with her face toward the fire. Seifer sat cross-legged on the other side of her, heating a frying pan over the flames to cook breakfast in. He didn't object when Squall bent down and helped. Quistis hadn't voiced her decision to allow Squall to join her pilgrimage, but it appeared everyone implicitly understood what she wanted.

They ate, Rinoa complimenting Seifer on his cooking though in fact he had burned everything, then put out and buried their fire.

When they arrived back at the Al Bhed camp, two huge pieces of machina with mounted fans had been set up along the road. The hovers, Quistis supposed. She paused to inspect one.

"It's a beaut', huh?" Zell said as he walked up. He reached out and patted it, the metal rivets on his gloves making a clanging sound against the vehicle's struts. "I rebuilt this one from the ground up. It got caught in a sandstorm back on Bikanel and everyone wanted to scrap it. But I knew it could be salvaged."

"So, we're all going to be trusting our lives to your craftsmanship?" Seifer said.

Zell scowled. "That's right. You got a problem with that?"

"I'm sure it will be fine," Squall said, deadpan.

Although she would have been ashamed to admit it to her Yevonite mentors back home, Quistis felt excited about the upcoming ride. Chocobos has been even more fun than she'd imagined, and these things probably went twice as fast. She was glad she'd get to experience this before she died.

"Morning, all!" Selphie said as she walked up and climbed into the driver's seat of the other hover. "All aboard!" She yelled, pumping one fist in the air, and then broke into song in her native Al Bhed: " _Rujan rujaaaaaan…dyga sa yfyoooooo!"_

"Selph…come on," Zell complained. "Do you have to sing that every single time? Hasn't hover-riding gotten old by now?"

"Yes and no," she replied, then launched into another verse that seemed not much different than the first.

When Irvine arrived, they all climbed aboard the two hovers. The engines, when they started, startled Quistis who shrank away from the noisy hum and the terrifying, spinning fan blades. When the hover first started moving, seeming to slide unnaturally across an invisible cushion between the sleds and the ground, she gripped the sides of her seat and held her breath.

The hovers turned out to not be twice as fast as a chocobo like she'd thought. Rather, they sped along at three or four times the speed. The wind buffeted Quistis's face, ripping tendrils loose from the fishtail she'd pinned her hair up in. The ocean whipped by on their right and the mushroom rock cliffs on their left. In no time, they passed Djose, angling back inland along the road to the Moonflow. Once Quistis's stomach settled and she relaxed back into her seat, the joy—the near miraculous feat—of moving across the ground at such a breathtaking pace took over. She grinned until her teeth felt dry. And she watched the landscape change from barren to grassy to woodsy in what felt like a handful of seconds. Spira looked different this way. Smaller. More connected. She felt a rush of affection for the world she called home.

"Your stop's just up ahead!" Selphie called back over the noise of the engine.

"Already?" Quistis tried, not vey successfully, to hide her disappointment.

They stopped the hovers right as the road narrowed to pass through a dense copse of trees and throttled the engines down to a low, knocking hum. Quistis's legs felt weak as she hopped down to the ground. Behind her, on the second hover, she heard Rinoa laughing and turned to find her sitting on the ground, her eyes squeezed shut as she giggled. Raijin stopped to offer his hand and help her up.

"Makes you consider becoming an Al Bhed, don't it?" Zell said, full of pride in his people and his craftsmanship.

"It's too bad you can't take me all the way to Bevelle," Rinoa replied. "I'd love to show up at my dad's house on one of these."

"You should visit Bikanel sometime," Irvine told her. "This is just the beginning of what we've got. And I'd be happy to show you a good time." He winked. "Plenty of fun rides to be had in al Al Bhed camp."

Selphie smacked the back of his head.

They had to get back to their camp, so the three Al Bhed didn't waste any time in turning their hovers around and heading back down the road. Quistis and her group continued on, over a small rise. Beyond spread the Moonflow. Quistis had heard about this place and even seen a few paintings of it. But they hadn't prepared her for the reality. The river, which bisected Spira into northern and southern halves, was so wide that she could barely make out the other side, just a thin, green line on the horizon. According to legend, the depths of the swift moving water hid the remains of a great machina city that had once been built on top of several massive bridges. But the city had eventually outgrown the bridges' ability to support it, and the entire thing crashed into the water below.

The sense of something tragic having happened here, and of ghosts continuing to linger, was enhanced by the moonlillies which clogged the river's marshy banks. The blossoms, which opened at dusk, attracted hoards of pyreflies. Many streamed around the closed buds even now, waiting.

Groups of merchants, monkeys, and travelers crowded this popular shore. The little blue hypello, in particular, called the Moonflow home. One approached Quistis.

"Hello? Game of cardsh?" it slurred. The little creature held out a collection of playing cards in its webbed hand. "The rulesh here are shame and one?"

Quistis, who had never heard of Triple Triad until she'd seen Raijin and Fujin playing one another, had managed to catch onto the rules quickly and amassed her own card collection by playing the two along the road whenever significant downtime gave them the opportunity. So this random offer intrigued her. She fished out her deck.

"Sure. I'll play a game with you."

She sat down with the hypello, who with the lilt of a question introduced itself as The Card Queen, while the others set about replenishing their supplies. They'd need even more now with the addition of two more people to the quest. Raijin and Fujin stayed with her to watch the game. The hypello won the first and pronounced that it (she?) would spread the rule of "shame" throughout the Moonflow. Quistis won the second round and claimed a new card. A good one, which made Raijin and Fujin _ooh_ and _ahh_. So she kept playing until the others returned.

The only way across the Moonflow and into the north was by shoopuf. The huge, gray-green creature stood armpit deep in the water, a little basket shaped litter strapped to its back. And another hypello—indistinguishable to Quistis from the Card Queen she'd just met—stood selling tickets for the ride across.

"Ride the shoopuf?" he called out over and over again.

"They don't seem too bright, do they?" Seifer said.

Rinoa frowned at him. "Don't be so judgmental."

The Card Queen had played a cunning round of games, more-so than Fujin or Raijin. So Quistis was willing to cut this species some slack as, quite literally, fish out of water. She climbed the steps up the platform to the eager Hypello and said, "We'd like to cross. How much for six people?"

Seifer paid him, and the Hypello stuffed their Gil into the pocket of his orange overalls before yelling, "All aboard!" and energetically turning a crank to lower a platform that would carry them up to the shoopuf's back. It looked rickety and old and probably hadn't been replaced or properly maintained in decades. When all six of them piled aboard, the lift creaked and groaned. And the little Hypello groaned and panted as he turned the crank to lift them. The water fell away underneath the platform as it lurched upward.

The smell of the shoopuf hit Quistis before they even boarded—a peculiar, dank, animal smell somewhere between that of a goat and a fish. The beast turned its head and looked over its shoulder at her as she leapt the short distance between the platform and the litter. Quistis settled onto the first available seat and clasped her hands primly on top of her knees. Squall sat across from her and looked unimpressed, even when the shoopuf turned away from shore and, in great lumbering steps, started out into the deep river current.

The ride went quickly. Quistis ate an apple which Raijin handed her from his pack, then tossed the core down into the water. A pleasant breeze blew across her face and the litter's awning blocked out the worst of the sun. She found the whole ride pleasant and relaxing. Only Rinoa seemed to enjoy the trip as much as Quistis. She leaned over the side, the wind blowing in her loose hair and pointed when a pair of ducks flew by.

On the other side of the Moonflow, another Hypello raised a platform and lowered them back to the ground.

Not as many merchants clogged the northern shore, but more monkeys sat perched overhead in tree branches, their long tails swinging idly in the early afternoon heat. The hard packed dirt road took them along the water for some distance.

"Hey. Aren't those some more Al Bhed?" Raijin said and pointed as the road curved inland again. Further down the riverbank, away from the road, Quistis could just make out a small group of people maneuvering a strange looking piece of machina into the water. A girl in a pastel body suit with blonde hair appeared to be directing the others, her arms waving as she jumped up and down and yelled.

"What do you suppose they're up to?" Rinoa asked.

"Who cares?" Squall said.

"For once, I agree," Seifer replied. "So long as it has nothing to do with us, I can't bring myself to give a shit."

"What if it's part of some plot to capture other summoners?" Rinoa asked.

Seifer shrugged and continued on with Squall, the both of them utterly unconcerned with other people's problems. It amused Quistis to see them do something in tandem—a rare moment of agreement between the two rivals who weren't as different as they liked to pretend. The rest of the group trailed behind them into the thick woods that separated the edges of the Moonflow from the great city of Guadosalam— their next stop. A few other travelers milled about along the road, all of them in high spirits at seeing summoner and her guardians.

One traveler, however, spotted them and immediately turned around to walk back the way he had come.

Rinoa slowed, her eyes squinted. "I think I recognize him…" she murmured.

The man looked middle aged and unremarkable with dark hair graying at the temples. He wore a long, black tunic with white embroidery that reminded Quistis of something Cid Kramer had been fond of wearing when she'd been younger.

"I've got it!" Rinoa said and snapped her fingers. "Vinzer Deling! He used to be a city administrator in Bevelle. He was the church's rebellion crusher. Came down hard on the Owls more than once. But…he's supposed to be dead. There was an incident. Something in the bottom levels of the temple, my dad said."

Seifer cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, "Hey! Deling!"

The man glanced over his shoulder.

"Guess your dad didn't tell you the whole truth," Seifer said.

Without waiting to think the situation over, Rinoa broke into a jog, yelling, "Wait!"

Deling turned and faced her rather than run way. His abrupt about-face unsettled Quistis.

"Stay away from me, _young lady_ ," he said, the command laced with a threat clear enough to stop Rinoa in her tracks.

"I can't believe you've been here all this time," Rinoa said and affixed her weapon, a projectile pinwheel similar to Fujin's, to the mount on her wrist. She pointed it at Deling. "To think, I actually believed my dad when he told me you were dead. That you'd paid some price for what you did to the Forest Owls."

Quistis and the rest of the group caught up to Rinoa and stood behind her, not sure yet whether to get involved in this dispute.

"The Forest Owls? You bunch of amateurs are still around?" Deling said.

" _Ama-teurs_?"

Something ugly bubbled across Deling's expression and he bent over to grab his knees, seeming in pain. "Are you here to get revenge, young LADY?" he asked and lurched forward a step. "Why doN'T you teLL mE…?"

With an awkward stagger, like a poorly articulated marionette, Deling lunged at Rinoa, his hands out, but she ducked under his grasp and Squall stepped into her place. The wet, solid sound of Squall's gloved fist connecting with Deling's face made Quistis flinch. Deling fell over with the force of the blow and landed on his back in a cloud of pyreflies.

"He's unsent!" Quistis yelled and drew her whip.

The pyreflies swarmed thick around him, and the arm that stuck up out of them again was no longer human. Deling, dissolved into his unholy, unsent state, clawed his way back to his feet, his skin white and stretched thin over lumpy deformities that fused his torso to his left arm and leg. His internal organs glowed alternately red and blue and clung to the bottom of his ribs in a clear, sickening sack.

"Get back!" Squall barked and shoved Rinoa behind him.

"Subdue him while I perform a sending," Quistis commanded.

Like most long unsent, Deling's new form cruelly mimicked the sins he'd committed in life when he'd held his boot heel to the throat of the resistance in Bevelle. His huge, clawed hand swatted Seifer to the ground, at the same time silencing him with an evil spell. Squall, Raijin, and Fujin launched at him next and he beat them back, too, inflicting them with blindness, pain, and confusion.

"I woN'T dIE," he howled. "You shOULd haVE jUST let mE BE!"

Seifer said something which Quistis supposed would have been snarky had he been able to actually speak. Beside him, Squall reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of blue potion which Quistis thought he must have bought from the Al Bhed the day before. Blind as he was, he reached out until the back of his hand connected with Seifer.

Seifer chucked it at Deling's chest and the bottle burst, spraying alchemic potion across his skin. Deling hissed and swatted at it.

Whip swinging in an arc above her head, Quistis pirouetted and turned on her toe. As her companions gained the upper-hand, she could feel her grip tightening on Deling's soul. Her back bent with the power of the sending and she turned again, her whip flaring out beside her. Pyreflies rose from Deling's body and streamed past her. She saw them in blinking swirls as she danced.

From deep in the ether, her aeons joined her.

Her vision blurred until she couldn't see the woods or Seifer or Squall anymore, just Deling as he had been—a man—surrounded by steaks of fire and lightning and a cloudy gloom of fear. Fear of crossing over. Fear of punishment on the other side.

So she soothed him: _Nothing to fear here_. And she parted the veil between Spira and the Farplane.

Distantly, she felt her body moving through the steps of the sending. But her inner eye paused to cast its own long glance at the other side. For most of her life, she'd known her fate, to die in Zanarkand while calling forth the final summon, and now for the first time, she glimpsed death and sensed it growing near. She'd pass this way soon, she knew. And she felt the shocking pain of sadness and regret at that thought as she forced Deling across the chasm, pushing him to continue his long overdue journey.

Reality came back to her in an instant and she found herself in the middle of a turn, which she faltered on and stumbled. Out of breath, she clutched her chest and dropped her whip. Raijin grabbed her by the arm and held her up long enough for her to gather her wits again.

It took Quistis several long minutes to remedy all of the ailments Deling had managed to inflict upon her group. Fujin, who had been cursed with confusion, proved especially difficult, as she backed up against a tree and struck out at her friends, her hands shaking with terror.

"About damn time!" Seifer yelled when she finally un-silenced him. Immediately, he turned to Rinoa. "Way to drag us into trouble on our first day out! What were you thinking, going up to a guy you knew very well was dead and challenging him like that?"

"You know what he did to the Owls."

"The Owls are _dead_ ," he shouted, the cruel remark drawing a shocked gasp from Rinoa. "The rebellion is over," he continued. "There are more important things going on here than Bevelle and your daddy issues. So grow the hell up. Okay?"

Rather than argue, she crossed her arms and turned her back on him.

"She couldn't have known that would happen," Squall said, shocking everyone by coming to Rinoa's defense.

"This isn't a vacation. It's a pilgrimage," Seifer replied. "There's no room for mistakes here."

Sensing that her new role as peacemaker would continue so long as Rinoa and Squall remained in the group, Quistis decided to interject. She stepped in between the two men. "Only a summoner could have sent that monster on his way," she pointed out. "So we had a duty to do here, regardless. Now let's put it behind us and move on."

Tempers continued to simmer as they continued up the Moonflow road. Even Rinoa remained subdued. Quistis walked beside her, wanting to apologize but without any idea what for. So she kept quiet.

Guadosalam rose suddenly out of the forest in front of them—or, rather, the outer edifice of the city did. It had been built underground, into a sloping hillside that bridged the gap between the woody banks of the Moonflow and the barren, storm swept expanse of the Thunder Plains. A sacred tree spanned the divide and served as the city's roof, it's roots allowed to grow around the Guado's homes below. A great plaza paved with jade marked the southern entrance. Quistis looked down at the unusual mineral with interest as she walked.

Down a short, dark tunnel, she emerged into the city proper, a curious mixture of rock and vine and brightly painted houses nestled in amongst woody growths, the whole aesthetic perfectly suited to the Guado who shared their city's twisted, lanky, arboreal quality.

"We'll stay the night here," she announced. "It's going to take several days to cross the Thunder Plains so we might as well rest up."

Her disgruntled group of guardians grumbled in response.

Maybe while they were here, she thought, they could work out some of these personal grievances, too. The Guado, after all, had long been the representatives of peace all across Spira, and Guadosalam had two major things going for it that she thought might help put some of Seifer and Squall's demons to rest: an entrance to the Farplane which had for eons provided Spirans with closure, and a world wide reputation for excellent local liquors.

In their case, she thought both might come in handy.


	6. Guadosalam

Chapter 6: Guadosalam

Rarely did Seifer hesitate to rush into anything (a room, a battle, a quest…), but the entrance to the Farplane in Guadosalam gave him pause. He stood at the base of the stone steps leading up to the watery barrier separating one world from the next and watched as Squall, Raijin, and Rinoa vanished through. Quistis had stayed behind at the travel agency with Fujin, the both of them claiming that they had no interest in visiting this sacred place. Honestly, Seifer didn't have much either. But Quistis had insisted that he go and he hadn't been able to fight the notion without either looking cowardly or admitting to feelings he didn't want to acknowledge or discuss.

So here he stood.

Slowly, he climbed the steps.

He knew that whatever he saw on the other side would only be an illusion created by the pyreflies which here possessed the cruel trick of mimicking the dead. Perhaps it gave comfort to those weak of mind and spirit. Seifer, on the other hand, refused to be touched.

Through the barrier, he found himself standing on a high, round plateau overlooking the Farplane below: a verdant, flower-filled glen bordered on all sides by sparkling lagoons and noisy waterfalls. The air moved in unnatural, pulsing waves. Like a heartbeat.

At the edge, Rinoa stood looking up at the floating figures of Zone and Watts. She spoke to them only for a few short moments before ducking her head into her hands to cry.

Not far from her, Squall was talking to his own pyrefly induced phantom, his a gentle looking lady in dark slacks and a canary yellow sweater. His mother, Seifer figured; they had the same pale face, dark hair, and wide blue eyes.

Unlike the other two, no one had appeared in front of Raijin. Still, he waited expectantly. Seifer wondered who for? He hadn't known Raijin before meeting him in the blitzball pool a scant few years ago and didn't know much about his childhood or his family. It struck an odd, sad chord for Seifer to see his friend with his big, dumb hands folded in front of him, full of religious piety and awe while he waited for the universe to send him the slightest shred of reassurance that everyone he'd lost was now okay.

Disgusted, angry with himself that he'd even bothered to come here, Seifer turned on his heel to leave until a voice he hadn't heard in well over a decade froze the blood in his veins.

"Hey there, little man. Aren't you going to stop and see me? I've been waiting for you."

Seifer didn't turn around right away. The sweet voice filled him with visceral dread as he recalled the very last time he'd heard it—the long, hot summer when he'd been five. It felt now like no time had passed at all. Vividly, he remembered the sounds, the smells, and his sense of utter helplessness as his mother died. Not drowned by Sin. But slowly, wasting away to a brutal illness that took everything from her before it finally released its grip. In the final days, it had seemed like her spirit had already moved on; she spent all of her time talking to the ghosts of her parents. When she died, Seifer's father broke the news by saying that she'd gone to "a better place." He'd seemed relieved that the ordeal was finally over.

Would she look the same here as she had when she died? Wasted and skeletal? The idea of seeing her that way again terrified Seifer enough to make him consider running for the exit. But he mustered up his courage and turned to face her.

"That's my brave boy," she said.

She looked like she had when he'd been a toddler: long, yellow-blonde hair pulled back into a thick plait, her pretty face smiling, full-cheeked and radiant.

"It's been a long time." She motioned him toward her. "I've missed you."

Distrusting this vision, Seifer didn't say anything though he did take what felt like an involuntary step forward.

"How are you?" she asked. "How is your father?"

Seifer's father still lived in Luca, though the two of them hadn't spoken in years. They had never been close and after his mother's death their relationship had deteriorated even further—the both of them too alike in temperament to get along without an intermediary. The years of shouting, name calling, and brawls eventually drove Seifer to play blitzball. It was one of the only things an undisciplined, aggressive young man could excel at, and it gave him enough income to leave home and never return.

"Your father comes to see me sometimes," his mother said with a dumb grin.

Seifer doubted that (his father wasn't exactly the sentimental type), but he admired the pyreflies' ability to mimic the exact face she'd made so often in life when speaking about the man she'd married. He didn't realize they could make something so life-like.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"I guess I'm surprised to see you here," he told her.

"Why?"

"Because you're half Al Bhed."

However this place worked, he'd held onto the hope walking in that perhaps his mother's heritage (and to some extent his own) might exclude them from the pyreflies' repertoire.

She laughed. "You know I was always a believer."

Even as a kid, he'd been sharply aware of her faith. She'd spent hours nestled in bed with him, reading stories about High Summoners and guardians of old. They'd spent many nights whispering in the dark about how Seifer might one day grow up to be as noble and bold as Lord Zahon, Yunalesca's trusted guardian and lover who had helped her usher in Spira's very first calm. Still, even with her unassailable devotion to the teachings of Yevon, many of the faithful in Luca rejected her as a half-breed. The distinct, swirled green eyes she'd inherited from her father made her lineage impossible to hide.

With his own one fourth Al Bhed blood, Seifer still thought he looked all too much like one. He had his mother's color and his father's build.

"Yevon is not spiteful. All souls who believe are welcome here," his mother told him.

"You're not real."

She quirked her head. "Where did you come by all of this doubt?"

The disappointment in her voice pained him. To assuage it, he told her, "I'm a guardian now."

His news quite literally lit her up. "Really? I knew you'd do great things! You know, I never once worried about you. Not even at the end. I always knew that you'd do okay for yourself."

He hadn't always felt so sure. With his mother gone, he'd found little to hold on to. And the memory of her weeks of misery haunted him even now. At one point, a cousin on his mother's (fully human) side had come to Luca to pray over her sickbed. The woman had married a maester—a guado, as it happened, since apparently disregard for social decorum ran in the family—but it had done no good. Yevon didn't help. And Seifer's mother hadn't even acknowledged her cousin's presence. Instead, she'd continued to converse in Al Bhed with the imaginary figment of her father.

And just like then, he reminded himself, this ghost wasn't real. Standing here speaking to it wasn't healthy.

 _I shouldn't have come here_ , he thought. Regardless of what Quistis thought about him, he should have stayed behind at the travel agency.

"I have to go," he told the form of his mother. "You won't be seeing me here again."

"Don't let go of your dream," she told him, already fading. " _Be brave for me._ "

Heart aching at those parting words, the very same she'd said to him at five years old, he walked away, back through the barrier and down the stone steps. When his heartbeat finally stopped thundering in his ears like a storm, he found himself back in downtown Guadosalam.

Dazed, he arrived back at the travel agency only to find their room empty. The Guado at the desk told him that Quistis and Fujin had left some time ago to "refresh their spirits" in a place up the road called NORG's. It didn't take long to find, highlighted as it was with a huge chalk drawn sign out front that featured a figure which looked like a cross between a Guado and an amorphous blob. A bar, he realized with surprise.

 _Perfect_.

This was just the kind of spiritual refreshment he needed.

0 0 0

Quistis lifted her drink to the light and peered through the glass at the blue colored liquid inside before taking a sip. Just as the bartender promised, it tasted sweet and fruity…nothing like the searing mixture she'd initially ordered, which now sat in front of Fujin. The drink could probably strip paint, Quistis thought. Yet Fujin swallowed gulp after gulp without so much as a wince. They sat side by side on stools at NORG's Bar, empty at the moment except for them and the titular owner—a huge Guado with at least four chins. He barely fit in the tight space behind the bar. Behind him, a painted sign proclaimed the area "NORG's Pod."

The bar itself was bigger inside than it appeared from without. Nice, too, with a piano, plenty of seating, heavy curtains on the walls to absorb noise, and a kitchen that served hearty home cooking. Quistis could see the top of the cook's head from where she sat as he pan fried the sandwich she'd ordered.

"So, how long have you known Seifer?" she asked Fujin, trying to make small talk.

The other woman didn't say anything. Just sipped her drink.

"You two seem close," Quistis continued. "The fact that you and Raijin are helping him achieve his dream of becoming a guardian is really admirable. It shows a lot of loyalty."

Certainly more, anyway, than Quistis had grown to expect from her own friends. She frowned into her drink, took a sip, and washed it around in her mouth before swallowing.

The cook brought out her sandwich and at the same time the front door opened. Seifer walked in, looking stormier than usual. At least he'd provide some conversation, Quistis thought, with a frown in Fujin's direction.

"You look like you just got in a fight," she told him as he pulled out the stool next to her, sat down, and ordered a drink of his own.

"Shows what you know," he replied. "This is the face of someone fresh from a spiritual experience."

"It was that good, huh?"

"Oh yeah. Always nice to aggravate old wounds."

Quistis wondered who he had seen, and whether it had been someone that he'd expected. Her own cowardly reason for staying behind revolved around the fact that she didn't know whether she could bear seeing Cid or Edea Kramer. Ever since learning of the attack on Kilika, she'd clung to the hope that they'd survived. And if she had to let that go, she feared grief would overtake her.

"Is everyone else still visiting the Farplane?" she asked.

"I don't know and I don't care." He glanced at her plate and her glass. "What in the world are you drinking? It looks like cough syrup."

"It's called a Blue Ronso. Want a sip?" She nudged it toward him. "It's really good. Tastes kind of like black raspberries."

"No thanks."

"Okay. Your loss." She started in on her sandwich while he brooded next to her, obviously mulling over whatever he'd seen on the Farplane. Though she burned to ask him about it, Quistis didn't pry. Mostly because she didn't think he would tell her about his experience anyway. She sat licking crumbs from her fingers when the rest of the group filtered into the little bar—Raijin first, followed shortly thereafter by Squall and Rinoa who (of course) made their entrance together.

Quistis didn't bother to hide her ugly expression at seeing the two of them side by side.

"Please don't tell me I'm going to have to put up with this shit all the way to Zanarkand," Seifer said to her. "It's bad enough that you're letting that asshole come along after everything that he did to you, let alone to spend what you have left of your life pining after him."

"I'm not pining."

"Yeah, right."

"Besides, he didn't _do_ anything to me," she added.

"He abandoned you," Seifer said. "You have a mission, and he thought he had a better one. It was only once his precious Operation Mi'ihen failed that he started to come around to this whole Final Summoning business."

She frowned, knowing that Seifer had a point. Still, having Squall close at hand meant something to her. And not just as a woman in love. She knew that he would carry word of her fate back to her loved ones. And he reminded her of home. She wanted to feel that connection in the last moments of her life.

"Gosh, this place is adorable," Rinoa was saying as she sat down on the other side of Seifer. "It reminds me of a place where the Owls used to meet in Bevelle. Do you remember it?"

Seifer took a long drink before replying. "Nope."

"Really? It had a back door that led to an alley behind Maester Kinoc's house and a big painting of a coeurl on the back wall. Ringing any bells?" She crossed her arms and leaned them against the bar. "Guess not. Oh well."

At length, the piano drew Rinoa's rambling attention.

"I saw Zone and Watts, you know," she announced. "It caught me off guard. I was expecting to see my mom…to let her know that I'm okay without her. I think she always worried that there'd be problems between me and my dad if something ever happened to her. Which…there are, obviously…but I've never doubted that he loved her. She's the one thing that brings us together. She played the piano. Sang, too. One of her songs even became famous after she died."

Looking wistful, Rinoa walked over to the instrument and sat down on the bench, her fingers brushing across the keys. It took her a few chords before she found the right place to start, and then she began to play, the song delicate and pretty—just like her.

As if she could be any more perfect.

Quistis quickly finished up her Blue Ronso.

" _I never sang my songs on the stage on my own,_ " Rinoa began, her voice soft and high. " _I never said my words wishing they would be heard. I saw you smiling at me. Was it real or just my fantasy? You'd always be there in the corner of this tiny little bar…_ "

The evening's patrons flowed into NORG's as Rinoa continued, seeming to lose herself in the song. She held everyone in thrall except for Seifer who scoffed, unimpressed.

"I'm so sick of this song," he grumbled. "Used to hear it all the damn time in Bevelle. Seemed like every time I turned around, someone was playing 'Eyes on Me.' Sappy piece of shit just about gives me hives. From what I hear, Rinoa's mom Julia wrote it while she was working at some pub. And I'm pretty sure it's not about Maester Caraway."

Regardless of her mother's intent, it was perfectly clear to Quistis who Rinoa was singing about. Squall sat with his head down, not acknowledging the performance in his honor.

By the time Rinoa finished, a sizable crowd of road weary pilgrims had filled the bar. Everyone applauded. NORG's praise threatened to drown out them all. His huge hands came together with deafening enthusiasm, and he jiggled with delight as he laughed, the sound erupting from his mountain of flesh as a raucous, "BRU-SHU-SHU!"

Seifer finished his drink and spun around on his barstool while behind him Rinoa blushed and bowed.

"Hey, Pubes," he shouted over NORG's continued applause. "You up for a friendly competition?"

Squall agreed and Quistis found herself suddenly alone at the bar as her entire group of guardians got up and relocated without her. When Rinoa managed to extract herself from the piano, all flushed and flattered, she took Fujin's recently vacated spot.

"Boy, that was embarrassing," she said. "My mom taught me to play. But I've never performed."

"You did a good job," Quistis told her, genuinely impressed. "I don't have any musical talent at all. You're lucky to have such a lovely voice. It seems like it would be nice to have that sort of emotional outlet."

"It can be. Speaking of emotional outlets…" She gestured to the fierce game of darts now unfolding between Seifer and Squall. "How long do you think it will be before that gets ugly?"

"Oh...I'm sure it won't be long before someone will get stabbed with a dart," Quistis replied dryly.

"I was hoping to get a chance to sit and talk with Squall a bit tonight. I haven't even gotten to thank him properly for saving my life during Operation Mi'ihen."

"He doesn't expect a thank you," Quistis advised. "He did it because he cares about you."

A pleased smile crossed Rinoa's face. "You think so?"

"Let me put it this way…I've known him his entire life. We grew up together. Went to the same school. His mom used to babysit me. And I'm not sure he'd have done the same thing for me as he did for you."

For too many years, Quistis had held onto to the merest hints of affection, saving space in her life and her pilgrimage for a man who deep in his heart wanted neither. Now that he'd been excommunicated and his life as a Crusader lay in ruins, he'd finally come to her. And she'd accepted him out of pity and for all the reasons she'd given Seifer earlier. But she still felt slighted.

"That's ridiculous," Rinoa said, her eyebrows drawing together. "Squall _loves_ you."

"He told you that?"

"He didn't have to. It's obvious."

Quistis shook her head.

"I know it probably seems like he chose the Crusaders over you, but he didn't," Rinoa continued. "He's been trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" Quistis repeated, dubious.

"Yes. You're like a sister to him."

The word _sister_ made Quistis's stomach turn over.

"Think about it," Rinoa said. "You're a summoner. Even if you beat sin, you'll still die. The Crusaders and Operation Mi'ihen offered him another way. One where he could protect you…get rid of Sin forever so that you'd never have to perform a Final Summoning. He's been on your side this whole time. Maybe not the way you wanted him to be. But that's not because he doesn't care."

She smiled reassuringly, as if that was exactly what Quistis had wanted to hear.

"You should talk to him about it," Rinoa suggested.

Easier said than done. Even with a slight buzz, Quistis didn't fancy the idea of cornering Squall to discuss her feelings—especially when her feelings were now so mixed. He thought of her as a sister? The possibility hadn't even occurred to her and she didn't know how to process it.

"I could say some of the same things to you about Seifer, you know," Rinoa said. She sipped a drink NORG delivered to her: pink with a cherry floating inside.

"What do you mean?"

"I thought I was in love with him in Bevelle. He has this confidence that made me feel like I could take on the world. But then I woke up one day and he was gone. He walked out of my life forever without a a word. And it seems like he never looked back."

"He's only here with me because he thinks I can make him famous," Quistis replied.

"Are you sure? Being a guardian is his dream. But he's got a pretty romantic sense of what that means." She smiled and leaned close. "He could have picked anyone. Why do you suppose he picked you?"

 _Serendipity_. She'd been in the right place at the right time with the right amount of sad desperation.

"REFILL?" NORG asked, noticing Quistis's empty glass. She knew she'd regret it later, but she'd taken a thick stack of Gil from Seifer's pack before leaving the travel agency. She pushed a note and her glass across the bar into the Guado's huge hand. "BRU-SHU-SHU," he chuckled and refreshed her glass.

"Let's go join the game," she suggested. Blue Ronso in hand, she started across the now noisy and crowded bar toward Seifer and Squall. "I'll play the winner," she shouted.

"That'd be me, of course," Seifer replied with a cocksure grin.

Squall merely rolled his eyes and handed Quistis his darts. "I'm all played out," he said. "Go ahead."

"I think that's called quitting," Seifer sneered at him.

"Whatever." Squall took a seat to watch and Rinoa floated over to sit down next to him. Quistis had to admit, the girl was determined and admirably unfazed by Squall's frostiness.

"Tch…loser," Seifer grumbled, then nudged Quistis. "Alright then. Are you going to go, or just stand there?"

The game looked simple. But Quistis's first dart missed by a wide margin, hitting the wall. She winced and nearly spilled her drink.

"How many of those have you had?" Seifer asked, sounding amused at her poor aim.

"Not that many," she snapped.

"A lightweight. Huh?"

"I'm not drunk."

He laughed. "You just suck, then? I didn't think it was possible, but you're even worse than Squall."

"Looked from where I was sitting like he beat you every game," she replied, then readied her second shot. With this one, she did marginally better, landing her dart on the board, about halfway between the edge and the bull's-eye. Her third did even better, clipping the inner circle. A good shot, considering her lack of experience (and apparent intoxication).

With an easy confidence, Seifer reached around to take the Blue Ronso from her, lifting it from her fingers. He took a swig and licked his lips (it left his tongue a little blue, she noticed), then he proceeded to fire all three of his darts right into the middle of the target, his aim if anything improved by the addition of alcohol. "I win."

Fujin and Raijin cheered.

"Aren't you guys supposed to be my posse now?" Quistis asked, hands on her hips.

"Uh…sorry." Raijin flushed. "Force of habit, ya know?"

Next game, they both still cheered for Seifer.

She was about to bow out and allow Squall back into the game, but when she turned to hand him the darts, he was gone. Rinoa, too. It took her a moment to locate them and when she did, she had to blink hard to be certain she wasn't imagining things. One of the other bar patrons had taken Rinoa's place at the piano and sat banging out upbeat melodies that had the more heavily intoxicated and exhibitionist people up dancing—Rinoa and Squall (inexplicably) among them. They stumbled into one another and with a huff of frustration, Squall moved to walk away, but Rinoa grabbed his hand and hauled him back to start over.

Never in her entire life had Quistis seen Squall so much as bob his head to music. It baffled her to see him out in public dancing with a girl. As he started to relax, he even became passably good at it, swinging her out and drawing her back in.

"You've gotta stop doing this to yourself," Seifer said and snatched the darts out of her hand. He walked over and jammed all of them into the board, then turned back around to face her. "He doesn't _deserve_ this kind of blind affection. It's not healthy. And Yevon knows, being lectured about healthy relationships by _me_ is one hell of a condemnation. Let it go, Summoner. Forget him. You've got _me_. And Raij, and Fuj. That's more than enough."

She sighed and leaned against a nearby table. "I'm starting to wonder if what I feel for Squall is some kind of sisterly affection that I've just misunderstood…"

He rolled his eyes. "If I were you, I'd kick his sorry ass to the curb. I'd never let him walk all over me, and I sure as shit wouldn't think it was my fault. If you keep making excuses for him, you're going to die without ever opening your eyes and realizing that you're fucking _better_ than him. And that just makes me sick."

Quistis sighed. "How about we play a different game?" she suggested. Something she could win, this time. She was getting tired of losing.

"Why don't we dance?" Seifer said and offered her his hand.

"I'd rather not."

"Because it's me asking? Or—"

"Because I don't know how. Not like this," she replied, interrupting him. For her, dancing meant sending. And she couldn't think of a time in the past ten years when she'd done it to do anything but commune with the dead.

"Okay then. What've you got in mind?" Seifer asked.

It didn't take much thought; she didn't know many games. "Triple Triad. You have a deck, right?"

They sat down at one of the tables, pulling out chairs across from each other, and Seifer scooted her drink across to her with a charming smile. Fujin and Raijin took over at the dart board, leaving two empty chairs, one of which Seifer pushed out far enough to prop his feet up on. With an arm slung casually over the back of his chair, he selected the rules they'd play by: an easy set, giving him the advantage in setting up a game that could be won by pure brute force. A tactical situation which suited him.

"Are you going to visit the Farplane before we leave?" Seifer asked her as he put down his first card.

"No."

"Isn't it part of your duty as a Summoner or something?"

"I am only obligated to visit Yevon's temples." She countered his move.

Seifer frowned, the scar between his eyes puckering slightly. "I think the whole place is pretty damn hinky, but if the only reason you're avoiding it is because you're afraid of what you might see, you ought'a know that Squall didn't see them. Your parents, I mean. Well…adopted parents. I asked him. And he said the only person he saw was his mother."

"He didn't see Ell or Laguna, either?"

Seifer shook his head.

The surge of hope this news gave Quistis made her bold. "Why did you bother to ask him?"

"Hell if I know," he said, though Quistis doubted his honestly.

She put down another card on the table. Immediately, Seifer slapped down one of his own and turned hers over with a grunt of triumph. _Hook, line, and sinker._

"So, are you going to visit the Farplane or not?" he asked.

"I don't think so. I'll be there soon enough. Right now, I'd rather spend my time here."

Her response quieted Seifer and he didn't say anything for the rest of the game, which she won in the final round of play. Graciously, she didn't claim any winnings and they started over again, the both of them taking an occasional drink from the Blue Ronso. Quistis wasn't sure how long they'd sat there playing, ignoring Squall and Rinoa on the dance floor, when Raijin and Fujin walked up to their table and announced that they were heading back to the travel agency.

"TIRED!"

"Yeah, I'm beat, ya know?" Raijin said, his sentence briefly interrupted by a hiccup.

"I suppose we should head out, too," Quistis agreed. "I'm starting to feel a little queasy…"

Seifer laughed. "I bet. Those Blue Ronsos you've been tossing back are some hard drinks."

"How hard?"

"You're going to feel it in the morning." He got up from the table and offered her his arm. Grateful, she took it and allowed him to heave her up out of her chair. He felt solid and warm and steady next to her. "It's the sweet ones you've got to watch out for. They sneak up on you," he told her.

"The other kind tasted awful."

He shrugged. "At least you know what you're getting."

It appeared that Squall and Rinoa had already left, as the dance floor had been vacated by everyone except one Guado waving his hands around in a way that more resembled semaphore than dance. Still clinging to Seifer's arm, Quistis followed Fujin and Raijin out the door. Without a sky above, she couldn't tell how late it had gotten, but the bare streets of Guadosalam suggested that she'd spent a few more hours at NORG's than she'd intended.

When they got back to the travel agency, Seifer put her to bed. And for a few minutes she lay there in the semi-darkness, watching as he pulled off his coat and his boots and tossed them into a pile with hers. Across the room, Rinoa was already asleep, just the crown of her dark head sticking out from under the covers. Squall rolled over in his narrow cot and met Quistis's eyes for a second before Seifer walked between them.

The really sad thing, she thought, was that Seifer wasn't here for her either. Just like Squall, he had his own agenda. It hadn't bothered her much coming from him though. Not until this moment, anyway, when suddenly she wished his motives pure.

"GOODNIGHT!" Fujin shouted from her cot.

"Sweet Yevon, Fu…shhh! People are trying to sleep!" Seifer scolded, then blew out the lantern.

Perhaps all the plans she'd made for this pilgrimage were just foolish dreams of a naive girl. When the Blue Ronsos wore off, she hoped she'd feel less sentimental and more practical.

0 0 0

Come morning, Quistis didn't look so good. Seifer tried to wake her up, and she only turned over in bed with a groan and pulled the covers up over her face. When he finally got her to sit up and take the glass of water he'd brought her, she scowled at it and stuck out her blue tongue. Rinoa fared a little better by virtue of the fact that the drink she'd chosen to indulge in at NORG's had been more fruit and sugar than alcohol. So the group unanimously decided to linger a while longer in Guadosalam. The mere notion of moving onto the Thunder Plains made Quistis grab her head and burrow further under the covers.

While she slept, Seifer went with his posse to grab a late breakfast.

He didn't much care for Guado food but managed to find a place open early that catered primarily to pilgrims in town to visit the Farplane. Inside, he ordered both for himself and a side meal to be boxed up for Quistis.

"I think she's starting to come around, ya know?" Raijin said. "She's starting to like you."

"She doesn't need to like me. She just needs to be fit and ready to perform the final summoning and defeat Sin," Seifer replied, though his recent visit with his mother had brought some of his old notions of what it meant to be a guardian back to the surface. Through the years, his dream had become more martial, more tinted by the real world and less by the fantasy he'd believed in as a child. Back on Kilika, he hadn't cared whether Quistis wanted him as her guardian; he could see the machinations of the universe and knew that they belonged together on this path. But now, with his mother fresh in his thoughts, part of him did want a purer connection. Something deeper and more genuine.

It all made him feel like such a wuss.

Back at the travel agency, he dropped the to-go box full of breakfast on Quistis's chest and she woke with a start. The ill effects of the night before must have worn off somewhat, because rather than retch at the smell of warm food, she took a deep breath, popped the container open, and grinned.

"We should stock up on supplies today," she said around a mouthful of bacon. "It's a long way to Bevelle."

By mid-afternoon, the the group had put themselves together and hit the streets. Seifer tagged along with Quistis to a small Guado shop whose sign advertised electrical dampening equipment sold within—things like arm-bands magically treated to deflect the attacks of the elemental fiends that lived in the Thunder Plains. When they walked in, they found the shop keeper already busy with a group of three people. Two men and a woman—all of them Lady Yuna's guardians.

"I'm worried about Tidus," the big-breasted, serious woman said as the shop-keeper rang up their sale.

"Why?" the man in the red coat asked.

"Isn't it obvious? He's sweet on Yuna," Wakka, the blitzballer, replied. "He isn't gonna be happy if Yuna decides to accept Maester Seymour's proposal. And I admit, I kinda agree with him. What's the point of a summoner marrying anyone?"

"It's about hope," the woman said. "If Yuna thinks this marriage will give Spira hope, then that's part of her duty."

"It's not enough that she's willing to die?" Wakka said, mirroring Seifer's own thoughts on the matter.

"No one said life is fair," the other man said. "Either way, it's not our choice. We're here to help Yuna on her journey, not dictate what it ought to be."

He didn't look the type, Seifer thought. The man had clearly been around the block a time or two. He had an old scar running down one side of his face that prevented him from opening his right eye all the way. His heavy sword and a well-used jug marked as rum dangled at his side. And he wore his arm sling-like inside of his haori—a cultivated appearance that Seifer recognized from a childhood spent steeped in the ways of guardians and knights and soldiers of old. This man had lost someone important to him. If anything, Seifer thought that this man would have a utilitarian, goal-oriented view of summoners, guardians, and their respective roles. Not some soft "be there for her no matter what" philosophy.

"Tidus doesn't understand that her duty comes before her personal feelings," the woman said. "You should talk to him, Auron. He trusts you."

Seifer's back went ridged. Like every wannabe guardian across Spira, Seifer had the name "Auron" burned into a very special place in his heart. The man was a legend in his own time—renown he'd earned by bringing about a decade long calm at the side of High Summoner Braska. There wasn't a person alive on the planet whom Seifer admired more. He wanted to tackle the man, demand to be taken under his wing and tutored in the ways of honor and battle. But the three were already walking out the door, heading back to rejoin their summoner.

When Seifer had seen the Lady Yuna along Mushroom Rock Road, he hadn't been terribly impressed. She'd looked young and quiet and not overly suited to the task of traveling the world, killing fiends and sinspawn. But with the magnificent Sir Auron at her side…?

Suddenly, the competition appeared much more fierce.

"And to think that I thought my pilgrimage was getting complicated…" Quistis said, her tone dry. "At least I'm not fielding any marriage proposals."

" _Yet_ ," Seifer said.

She glanced sharply up at him.

"Kidding! Come on. Let's finish up here and get going." With the way things were looking, the sooner they got to Zanarkand, the better.


	7. Thunder Plains

Chapter 7: Thunder Plains

Living underground had its advantages. The Guado didn't worry much about Sin. In fact, they didn't worry about much of anything. For someone like Seifer, who had grown up surrounded by constant noise and metropolitan movement, Guadosalam must have seemed at times to be standing still. Like right now, for instance. He tapped the hilt of his sword and sighed, casting his gaze about for any available opening to brew trouble. None of it bothered Quistis. She sat perched on the high curve of a wayward root and watched the city breathe. Beside her, Squall did the same.

She didn't know what to say to Squall. But for once, she felt comfortable with his silence. Yesterday, she might have felt compelled to deconstruct him, to try and guess what thoughts might be moving through his head. Now that she'd begun to let go of the idea that any of his thoughts might involve her, she found that she didn't care quite so much. She was starting to see him as simply quiet. Not deep, tortured, and in need to fixing.

It felt good to pull free of his grip on her heart.

Surprisingly so.

"I told her to meet us here," Seifer grumbled, then turned to Squall. "Did she say where the hell she was going the last time you saw her?"

"Said she needed to say goodbye to some friends."

"Friends? Sweet Yevon, she's only been in town for a day. How has she already managed to make lifelong acquaintances?"

Squall shrugged as if to say: _You know how she is._

"Don't you think we ought to go track her down before she starts some Guadosalam chapter of the Forest Owls? Not that this place couldn't use the drama. But, I'd rather not wait around while she does her whole ' _rah, rah freedom'_ routine."

"Give her a few more minutes," Quistis suggested. "She'll be here."

"Here's a crazy thought: why don't we just leave without her?"

"You don't mean that," Quistis said, confident that somewhere deep down Seifer still harbored some affection for his ex-girlfriend.

"Sure I do. She's a guest on this pilgrimage. And the chocobo is leaving the station. It's her own fault she's not here on time."

Right then, the door to the huge estate in the middle of town opened, drawing all of their attention, and the striking figure of Seymour Guado stepped out—the Lady Yuna's fiance, if rumors could be believed. Quistis had to admit that, even through his half-Guado blood, she could see the man's appeal. He possessed a handsome face, strong jawed and perfectly proportioned. That combined with his towering height and raw political power gave him a unique charisma.

Well, maybe not _unique_. He reminded her a little, she decided, of Seifer.

"Looks like even that ugly bastard is going to beat us to Zanarkand," Seifer said, his tone huffy.

Quistis smiled. "Funny you should say that. I was just thinking about how much the two of you look alike."

"What? Me and Seymour? Gee…thanks. Nice to know how you really feel about me. Guy looks like he got puked on by a tree, for goodness sake."

"I meant your faces."

"Our faces?"

"You have similar bone structure."

He shook his head. "I'm gonna do you a big favor and pretend that you never even brought this up. Okay?" When he glanced around and noticed the amusement on Raijin and Fujin's faces, he lost all of his remaining patience. "I'm going to find Rinoa," he announced and drew his sword.

For the safety of all involved, Quistis and the rest of the party followed along, and eventually they found Rinoa near the tunnel leading north out of the city. She stood talking to a Yevonite girl with red hair and a pointy, green hat.

"Hey guys!" Rinoa said when she saw them coming. "You just missed Maester Seymour. He said he was heading to Macalania Temple."

"He's the high priest there," the red-head added.

"Perfect. He's probably on his way up there to decorate or something." Seifer reached over his sword to grab Rinoa by the arm. "Come on, Rin. We've gotta make it to and from that temple before he turns it into his personal love nest to wed and bed Lady Yuna in."

"Lady Yuna…?" The red-head lifted her hands to her face as Seifer's sentence processed. "Lady Yuna and Maester Seymour are to marry?"

Seifer shoved Rinoa past her. "You didn't hear it from us," he said.

They moved on, leaving the young girl behind, utterly over the moon at the prospect of the celebrity wedding on the horizon. As cynical as ever, Seifer merely rolled his eyes at Quistis. She rolled her eyes right back, though part of her envied Yuna. Not that Quistis wanted to get married. But she would have liked to experience love at some point before she died. The mutual kind.

While they made their way down the long tunnel, Quistis made sure that she had her lightning bangle properly secured over her upper arm, then pulled on a light pink raincoat with blue stitching that she'd purchased over top. The rubbery material squeaked and groaned as she moved. And she considered abandoning the coat all-together until a fresh, wet breeze wafted up the dark tunnel, thick with the scent of a distant storm. She took in huge breaths of it, appreciating the clean scope of that smell after a day and a half spent in the cluttered, earthly morass of Guadosalam.

Thunder reached her next. It rippled off the rocks, a sonic boom that Quistis felt echo in her chest. Then she began to see flashes of light and to hear the regular patter of rain. At the tunnel's end, she paused to pull up the hood on her jacket and survey the huge, barren plain beyond. Nothing grew here except for water-loving fungus and mold. The oppressive storm clouds overhead blocked out the sun and made it impossible for anything green to survive.

"Is it true that the lightning never stops?" Raijin asked, awed.

"It must have at some point, since there's the remains of a machina city here," Rinoa pointed out. "I'd be willing to bet there's something buried here that's causing the storm. If we could just dig it up and turn it off, the sky would clear."

"Maybe. But for now all we've got are these lightning rod towers." Quistis pointed to the nearest one. "They attract most of the strikes. But not all of them. We still need to be careful not to get hit."

"Isn't that what these damn bangles are for?" Seifer asked.

"They're designed to absorb attacks by lightning elementals. The real bolts from the sky are orders of magnitude more powerful. The bangle will help, but I wouldn't advise getting hit. Stay close to the towers."

Rain pounded against her hood as she stepped out into the storm. Water had gathered in deep puddles and eroded away much of the road that had once led the way through the plain. So Quistis aimed for the first tower. Above, a white bolt of electricity connected with the metal rod sticking out the top, the flash searing the back of her eyes.

"I've always wondered where my ancestors came from. Back in the machina days, I mean. And I think this has gotta be it, ya know?" Raijin was saying to Seifer. "This place…it just _feels_ like home."

"REFRESHING," Fujin agreed.

"I think it's sad," Rinoa said. "When you see places like this and realize what we did to Spira in the past…Sin makes a little more sense."

Quistis could see both points of view. She liked the storm at a visceral level, liked the crashing, flashing raw power of it. It reminded her of the summer storms they'd gotten in Kilika, which blew through every day at dinner time like clockwork for a week every year, leaving streams of water running down off the mountain, through town to the sea. At the same time, this particular storm seemed to seethe. An old wound, never healed. Like the planet was angry with them. That was certainly what Yevonites taught when musing on this place. Quistis supposed Rinoa took more from her father than she realized.

It didn't take long before the novelty of the rain wore off and Quistis's toes began to feel wet through her boots. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flash of green, but when she turned it was gone. Just more bare rock.

Seifer moved to walk next to her. He had the collar on his gray coat turned up, but had refused to wear anything else. He looked soaked through.

"There's a travel agency halfway," she told him. "We'll stop so that you can dry off and warm up there."

"I'm fine. But if Pubes or Rinoa need to stop…I don't care."

She smiled at him under the shadow of her hood. "I wanted to thank you, by the way."

"For what?"

She thought about how exactly to phrase her response for a second before saying, "For being my guardian." For all of his faults, he remained the one there at her side whenever she found herself alone: in Kilika, in Djose, and at NORG's Bar. She appreciated his dedication, even if she hadn't initially wanted it.

"If you let me ditch Squall and the princess, we can be right back to good old times." He sounded only half-joking.

"I know I've asked you this before, but I don't think you've ever answered honestly," she said, ignoring his suggestion. "I'd really like to know, out of all the summoners in Spira, why you picked me."

"I get the feeling there's something specific you want me to say…"

"Just the truth."

He looked up at the sky. "I came to Kilika because it was nearby, and because I knew High Summoner Ohalland had been from there. I figured it'd be a good place to start looking and there you were, just waiting for someone like me to come along."

"There wasn't anything else to it?" she pressed, thinking for the umpteenth time that day about what Rinoa had said to her at the bar, about Seifer perhaps harboring deeper feelings.

But he shook his head, all business. She wasn't quite sure if she felt relief or disappointment at his response. But a flash of green caught her attention again, drawing her away from their conversation. This time she spotted it—the shape of a cactuar glowing on one of the rocks. She stopped and stared. Raijin nearly plowed into her.

"Hold on a second," she said. As soon as she stepped toward it, the cactuar shape vanished, but she kept her eyes locked on where it had been. And as she got close enough to the rock to touch it, a bolt of lightning struck behind her, illuminating a gap in the sheer wall ahead. Compelled, she walked up to the gap and found it just wide enough to squeeze through.

"Where are you going?" Seifer asked. "Macalania is that way."

"I'm not sure yet. Just follow me." Of all the places in Spira, the Thunder Plains kept the most secrets. No one stayed here long, and not much off the beaten path had been explored. Quistis's heart hammered in her chest as she wondered what she might find on the other side of the gap. Rinoa's storm making machine, maybe?

The gap grew tight and she turned sideways to make it through, then popped out on the other side to find herself looking down into a shallow basin, dominated by the strangest looking structure she'd ever seen. It looked half-decayed: a tower, barely held up by a massive octahedral frame. A single, thin staircase led up into the structure. And hammered deep into the rock, a wooden sign—barely legible—proclaimed the area, in the ancient tongue, "My Blue Heaven."

"What in the world is that?" Seifer asked as he came up behind her.

"I don't know. But I want to explore it."

"Why? Looks like it'll topple with a sneeze and kill us all."

"I bet nobody but us has seen this for thousands of years," Rinoa said. "I'm with Quistis. We should check it out."

Quistis didn't have to wait for the consent of her whole party, let alone Seifer, so she started down toward the building by herself. Immediately, she noticed a scrabble of movement in among the ruins. Fiends, most likely. Though she couldn't tell what type. Judging from what she'd seen so far, she thought maybe small lizards or dragons.

Assurance that she'd made the right decision settled firmly in her mind when she put her foot on the first step and a beam of green-blue light appeared where the railing had rotted away. Enchanted, she ran her hand through it and felt the warmth of ancient magic. Very ancient.

"I don't think we should spend too much time here," Squall said, agreeing with Seifer for one of the first times in his life. "This doesn't look very sturdy."

Quistis moved up the steps and found them solid. At the top, they spit her out onto a circular platform with a statue in the middle that had been worn down so badly by the years she could no longer tell what it had depicted. This place was too old, she thought, for it to be of a high summoner. And she didn't know enough about the machina cities to guess what sort of men or things they had venerated.

"There's legends about the Thunder Plains," she said, keeping her voice low, as she moved around the statue. "The city that was here was one of the first destroyed in the machina war. Bevelle did it. They used some kind of weapon to rain down destruction from the sky."

"I'm sure they deserved it," Seifer said.

Up another set of magical stairs they found more ruins. And, disconcertingly, a fiend that Quistis had only heard of but never seen. She caught only a brief glimpse as it scampered away, the light from the lantern it carried glinting off its bald, green head. A tonberry. She'd thought them eradicated in all but Spira's deepest, darkest places. It gave Quistis a moment's pause to realize that this might qualify.

"What do you suppose this place was?" Rinoa asked, twirling around, oblivious to the danger. "It seems too isolated to be part of the main city."

"Maybe it's a tomb," Raijin suggested.

They walked into one of the only remaining structures and Quistis nearly lost her balance when the floor moved under their feet, propelling them upward just like the lifts on Mushroom Rock Road. It took them up what felt like a long way, and when it stopped, they startled a huge, knee-high tonberry that had been in the middle of chewing on the bare, knotty end of a bone. It made a guttural sound, dropped its meal, and pointed its lantern at Quistis, sending searing pain straight through her heart.

With a gasp, she dropped to her knees.

Seifer moved first, though Squall was nearly as fast. The two of them fell upon the fiend in a fury. They had it outmatched in both height and weight. But the tonberry shrugged off their attacks with alarming ease, only to sink a little knife hilt deep in Seifer's leg. He howled, fell back, and his posse rushed in to take his place. It took a concerted effort. Including one of Quistis's aeons. But at length, the little beast finally fell—dissolving into a burst of pyreflies. Everyone stood panting. Rinoa had her arms wrapped around Squall like a frightened monkey. And Seifer clutched at the knife still protruding from his leg.

With a grimace, he tugged it free and tossed the blade onto the ground.

"Don't move. I'll heal you." Quistis rushed to help him.

Blood covered his hand. He wiped it clean on his wet coat while Quistis collected all of her magic to stitch him back together. The wound looked deep, down to the bone, and even Seifer who rarely showed pain couldn't hide the pale hint of shock on his face. The spell helped to bring back some of his color.

"Let's try not to run into one of those again," he said.

"Yeah," Rinoa agreed. "I was _really_ scared."

"I'd like to go on a little further," Quistis said.

Seifer winced as he put his full weight on his leg, and she thought he was preparing to demand they return to the pilgrim road, get back on track for their all-important date with Sin. But he didn't. He gestured her to go on. Before he could change his mind, she did just that. She jogged up another set of stairs and kept going until she figured she'd neared the very top of the tower. A huge, stone slab door marked again with the words "My Blue Heaven" met her. Statues of winged monsters flanked both sides, one of them missing an eye.

When she pressed her palm to the door, Quistis felt the hair rise on the back of her neck.

"We have to get in here," she said.

"Why?" Rinoa asked. "Looks like the kind of place that I'd lock up something dangerous in."

Quistis couldn't explain it. Maybe she'd been consumed by the sheer thrill of discovery. Or maybe Yevon had guided her here, to a special destiny. Either way, she had to know what this place had been built to hide. Working her fingers as deep as she could into the door's seam, she braced her feet and pulled. After a moment's consideration, Squall joined her. Then Raijin did, too.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Summoner," Seifer said before he, too, added his weight to their efforts.

The door, however, refused to budge.

"I don't think we're getting anywhere with this," Squall said.

Raijin let go to suck on his scraped fingertips. "Yeah. There's nowhere to grab, ya know? I think we could do this all day and not make a difference."

Quisits didn't want to see that they were right, but her logic overruled the thundering of her heart and she let go of the door with a heavy sigh.

"Hey. It's not so bad," Rinoa said, her tone cheery. "You can always come back here again later, and…oh! I mean…" She blushed. "Sorry. Forget I said anything."

The reminder that she might never pass this way again made Quistis's feet heavy.

"Well, we tried," Seifer said, speaking louder than necessary to override Rinoa's slip of tongue. "Nothing more we can do here. So let's get back on track for the travel agency before I freeze to death in this damned rain."

Everyone turned to leave. Quistis lagged behind. She knew she couldn't do anything more. But she lingered anyway, unable to bring herself to walk away. One last time, she glanced over the superstructure of the tower's frame overhead, over the writing on the door, and over the two statues, drinking it all in. A glimmer of red at one of the statue's feet caught her attention. It's missing eye, she realized. It was the least she could do for this forgotten place. She bent down, picked the stone up, and stood on her tip-toes to slot it into the beast's empty eye socket. It locked into place with a satisfying click.

And then, with a grumble like thunder, the door slid open.

"Oh my…" she breathed, then called over her shoulder, "Seifer! Squall! Come back!"

The chamber beyond the door was dark, but she could make out the familiar circular impression on the floor of a fayth. Behind her, she heard her guardians' footsteps approaching. So she took a step into the dark. She couldn't recall any legend, any source of hearsay, that the Thunder Plains had ever been home to one of Yevon's temples. It made no sense for a fayth to exist here, unless it predated the storm, going all the way back to the days of the machina war. No one had prayed to this fayth for thousands of years, she realized. No other summoner in living memory had commanded its aeon.

Why had it been locked away here?

From the shadows, her eyes caught movement. She looked up from the fayth and heard a noisy puff of breath before a strange set of hooves clopped slowly across the stone floor and into the light. A huge white horse, six legged, approached bearing a single rider. Quistis couldn't make out his face, but she could see his hands, his tallow-yellow skin, and the glimmer of a huge, blue-black blade at his side.

"The weak shall perish," he announced, his voice deep and dusty and thick with an ancient accent. "The strong shall triumph. Prevail over my sword, and I shall grant it to thee."

He gestured her forward with one of his hands and her feet skidded across the stone, past the door's threshold.

"Quistis!" someone shouted behind her.

The door slammed shut, leaving her alone in the dark with the aeon, who lifted his sword.

"For honor…let us fight!"

0 0 0

Despite the lingering pain in his leg, Seifer launched himself at the door that had just closed behind Quistis. Desperate, he heaved himself against it, slamming his shoulder into the rock with the distant hope that it might give way. When it didn't, he wedged his fingers as far as he could into the door's seam and pulled until his arms ached and his fingernails felt like they would pop off.

He swore and attempted to lever it open with Hyperion, bending the sword until he thought it, too might break.

"Did anybody see how she got it open?" he demanded.

Everyone shook their heads. Squall searched the door for any sort of mechanism which she might have tripped, up along the top, down along the bottom, even behind and around the gargoyle statues.

"I don't see anything," he said.

"We can't leave her alone in there! That thing is going to kill her!" Seifer roared.

He'd caught a glimpse of the aeon before the door had swept closed and had overheard what it had said to her. No ordinary aeon, this one didn't want prayer—it wanted blood. Had it already killed her? She had some talent with her whip and had magic and other aeons at her call…but he didn't know what that might mean against an adversary like this. It couldn't be a coincidence that this aeon had been locked up here in this difficult to access, dangerous place.

Frustrated, he banged against the door with his fists. He hadn't come this far to lose his summoner to a stupid aeon.

"She can take care of herself. Right?" Rinoa said. "She's a summoner. She's trained for this kind of thing. I'm sure she'll be okay."

Squall didn't look convinced.

And Seifer felt downright sick.

Helpless, frustrated, he could do nothing but wait.

0 0 0

The aeon never moved. He merely stood, impervious, as Quistis unleashed everything she had on him. She got the feeling that he had some internal countdown going and if she couldn't prove herself before he reached zero, he'd lob off her head with his sword and be done with her. She summoned Ixion and together they filled the entire chamber with lightning. The scent of ozone laced the air by the time they finished, and she stood alone again, Save the Queen coiled at her feet.

"Stop," the aeon commanded.

She hesitated, still ready to wrap her whip around his neck, though she didn't think it would have much effect on him. He wore black armor from toes to chin and a horned helmet that nearly brushed the ceiling.

"Thou art strong," he said, a satisfied smile tugging at the corners of his otherworldly mouth. "I am Odin. And this," he inclined his sword, "is Zantetsuken. Call upon me in times of trouble…"

Unlike her experiences with other fayth where she forged a bond over a matter of hours, this time the connection happened all at once. It rocked her and she fell back against the wall, her mind momentarily taken over by Odin.

In a flash, she knew everything that he'd once been in life and saw the great city that had existed in the then peaceful, lush expanse of the Thunder Plains. She saw their technology and felt Odin's pride in his civilization. And she saw the destruction that rained down on it from above, knew his anger and his sense of complete betrayal, felt the physical pain he'd experienced at losing an eye in the attack. Above all of that rose the conviction and simmering rage that had compelled him to give his body and soul over to become a fayth.

Like a fog, the past gradually lifted, and Quistis once again saw the dark ruins of Odin's chamber.

The door opened behind her. Her vision blurred and sweat trekked down the side of her face. She could barely stand, exhausted by the battle and the new aeon binding himself to her soul.

She must have fallen, because she felt someone's hands scoop under her arms and lift her up.

"Is she hurt?"

"DEAD?"

"I dunno! I can't see, ya know!"

"Damn it, Quistis." Seifer's voice sounded close to her ear and she realized through the haze in her head that he was the one holding her up. "Don't do that again. I thought you were dead."

It took her a few more minutes to work through the confusion. Seifer hauled her out of the fayth's chamber and deposited her on a slab of broken rock. Cool, misty rain pattered down on her face. He shook her.

"Are you okay?"

Full to the brim with Odin's presence, she nodded. "I'm better than I've ever been."

"Yeah, you look like it, too," he said sourly. "Don't tell me I'm going to have to carry you all the way to the travel agency."

"No. Of course not. I'm fine." She went to stand up, but her head swam and she had to plop back down again. "In a few seconds," she amended. "It's a lot to process. And this aeon in particular is…" All she could think of to say was _undiluted_ but she didn't think Seifer would understand what she meant. Most of Spira's fayth served multiple summoners. Ifrit and Ixion didn't belong wholly to her. She shared them and their power with Yuna, Dona, and others. But not Odin.

When she thought she'd recovered, she went to stand again.

"I think I can make it back to the road now," she announced.

Squall offered her his arm, and she took it with a grateful smile.

They made it all the way to the first floor with the destroyed statue before crossing paths with another tonberry. Seifer cursed when he spotted it and put a protective hand over his leg where she imagined he could still feel the ghostly imprint of the last one's knife. The tiny creature came at them, its lantern waving, and Quistis's mind flickered to her new aeon. She hadn't even fully decided to summon him when he appeared, a crackle of lightning announcing his presence.

Odin galloped at the fiend, swung his sword in a huge arc, and then vanished as quickly as he'd appeared. In his wake, the tonberry, sliced cleanly in two, dissolved in a huge burst of pyreflies that left them all stunned.

" _Sweet Yevon_. That was…" Seifer seemed at a loss for words.

"AMAZING," Fujin provided.

"Yeah. What she said," Rinoa agreed.

For the first time in a while—since Seifer had taken over her life, really—Quistis felt powerful and respected. It buoyed her spirit. Filled her with the confidence she'd lost after being rejected by Squall weeks ago on the temple steps in Kilika.

She let go of Squall's arm, and, full of her own authority, took the lead. For a second, glancing back over the ancient temple as they left, she saw it through the eyes of the man Odin had once been—as a polished marble and sparkling granite column flanked by trees, its stained glass windows spreading sprites of color.

Spira before Sin.

0 0 0

At the travel agency, Seifer changed out of his wet clothes and into a pair of Luca Goers sweatpants and t-shirt, then gave everything he had to the Al Bhed at the front desk who promised that he had some contraption which would dry them in a matter of hours. As he'd changed, he'd stopped to examine the thin white line on his thigh, all that remained from the injury he'd suffered at the tonberry's little lizard hands. It still ached deep in his flesh, like the tip of the knife was grating against his femur, but it didn't hurt worse when he pushed his thumb to the scar. Phantom pain. It'd go away once his body came to terms with the fact that he'd been healed.

On his way back from the front desk, he found Raijin sitting by one of the agency's windows.

"Hey. Have you seen Quistis?" he asked. "I want to talk to her."

"I think she's in her room," Raijin replied. "But Fujin and Rinoa are in there, too. In case you don't want to…ya know… _talk_ in front of them."

Seifer sighed. "What are you trying to get at?"

"You freaked out in a major way back there when that door closed on her," Raijin said.

"So?"

"It just seemed like there might be some feelings there, ya know?"

"She's our summoner. Without her, all of this will have been for nothing. It's my job to protect her."

Raijin shrugged. "Guess she doesn't need us as much as you think then, ya know?"

That was for damn sure. Not that he'd ever admit it. The incident back at Odin's temple had spooked him, and after raging against that door and nearly giving Quistis up as dead, he'd been seriously reluctant to admit to the trip being worthwhile. Even when her aeon appeared and sliced through a tonberry like a pat of butter, he hadn't been ready to accept the risk she'd taken. But now that he'd had time to process it and to work through the unexpected fear he'd felt in the face of losing her, he'd begun to come around.

He walked to the room she shared with Rinoa and Fujin and, without knocking, swung the door open.

"Hey, Summoner, I need to…. _whoa_!"

Fujin sat armpit deep in a basin full of water. She gasped and drew her knees up to cover herself. Half a heart-beat later, her pinwheel whistled past Seifer's ear and embedded itself in the door.

"OUT!"

He didn't waste any time leaping back out of the room and slamming the door shut behind him. He hadn't caught his breath yet, the image of Fujin in the bath still seared and glowing on the back of his eyeballs, when Quistis opened the door and stepped into the hallway with him.

"Don't you know how to knock?" she asked and pantomimed it, as if he didn't even know what she meant.

"Yeah, but…How was I supposed to know she was taking a bath?" he whispered. "What the hell are you and Rinoa doing in there with her, anyway?"

"It's our room. We're allowed." She crossed her arms. "How much did you see?"

Seifer scrubbed his eyes. "Too much."

Amused at his misfortune, she dropped her arms and leaned in close. "Did you need something from me?"

"I just wanted to talk."

"Good. I want to talk to you, too."

"You do?" He guided Quistis away from the door so that their conversation wouldn't be overheard. Rinoa probably had her ear pressed so hard against it that she'd have the grain of the wood imprinted on her face.

"Yes. About what happened back at Odin's temple. I know that you think it was reckless and that I worried you. Rinoa told me about what happened after the door closed, and I—"

"It's my job to worry," he interrupted, uncomfortable with the way he figured Rinoa would have interpreted his concern.

"I know." She smiled kindly. "But still, I didn't mean to scare you like that. Honestly, it never occurred to me that you might take a threat against me so seriously."

"I wouldn't be much of a guardian if I didn't…"

"True. But, as a guardian, you also at some level have to be okay with the idea of delivering me to my death. Which I realize now is why you've been a better choice than Squall all along. He hasn't come to terms with that yet."

For some reason, her words didn't sit well with him.

"I had assumed," she continued, "that if something happened to me, you'd just find a new summoner."

"No." He shook his head. "You're special."

Odin meant that they had an edge on every other summoner out there.

No one else had an aeon who could cut through the swaths of fiends between here and Zanarkand with that kind of ease and efficiency. Quistis was now the most powerful summoner in all of Spira. Fate had delivered to him the one woman who could make him a hero and fulfill all of his dreams.

The fact that she had to die to do that didn't bother him. Did it? Truthfully, he hadn't thought overmuch about it. And he didn't like the way that thinking about it now made him feel.

"Damn right I'm special." She glowed with a level of self-assurance he'd never seen in her before. She wore it well. "How's your leg, by the way. Is it bothering you at all?"

"No," he lied. "I feel great." Not in pain. Not conflicted. Every inch the epic, infallible hero he'd always wanted to be.

"Good." She nudged him. "If you come back in about ten minutes, you might be able to catch Rinoa in the tub rather than Fujin. She's the one you were hoping for, right?"

"Not hardly. When do I have to come back to get you?" The flirtatious taunt tasted sour to him, false levity on top of the darkness creeping into his heart.

She shook her head and walked away, her hips swaying for everything she was worth. "Sorry. Too slow. That chance has already come and gone."


	8. Macalania

Chapter 8: Macalania

Sopping wet and sick to death of rain, wind, and lightning, Quistis trudged up a steep hill that she hoped would finally take her out of the Thunder Plains' wide basin. Water squelched in her boots. And not even thoughts of long days spent languishing on Kilika's warm, sandy beach distracted her from the bone-deep cold numbing her body from the waist down.

The storm raging above made it difficult to keep track of time, so she had no idea how long she'd been walking since leaving the travel agency that morning. As she reached the top of the hill, she spotted a yellow shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds in the distance. It cast a gauzy curtain of gold to the horizon, illuminating the thick, glittering forest ahead.

"At last," Rinoa said as she came up behind Quistis. "Macalania Woods."

The whole group skidded down the rain-slicked path toward the treeline below.

Although the woods had still appeared far away from the top of the ridge, it didn't take long before Quistis passed under the first silver-barked tree. Its leaves rustled in the breeze like wind chimes. She pulled back her hood to see them better.

The head priest in Kilika hadn't provided her with much information on this area, having only cut through the woods briefly on his way to Bevelle. So she had no sense of when this forest had come into being or what sort of secrets it held. She now realized, however, that the priest had understated its natural beauty. Breathless, tangled, ethereal wilderness closed in around Quistis as she walked, the roll of thunder overtaken by thick silence in a matter of steps.

An open patch of forest floor struck her as an inviting place to bed down for the night. The rest of her miserable party immediately agreed.

Raijin and Fujin left to gather wood while Squall cleared out a fire pit. Seifer, meanwhile, struggled out of his wet trench coat. He wrung it out as if fetching it straight from the wash, then tossed it over a low-hanging branch to dry. He forked one hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in disarray.

Once Raijin and Fujin returned, a quick spell from Quistis earned them a crackling blaze which she fed to roaring.

"I don't think I've ever been this cold in my entire life," she said and held out her trembling hands until the flames seemed to be licking at her palms.

"I have," Seifer said and stepped up beside her. "Yesterday. But at least then I knew that I could look forward to a real bed and a hot bath. Don't suppose I'll be getting either of those here."

Fujin cast him a withering glance which he either didn't notice or chose to ignore. She still hadn't forgiven him for walking in on her the night before. Rinoa remained convinced that Seifer had intended to wak in on Quistis instead. After that, she'd spent more than an hour lingering in her own bath, perhaps hoping that Squall would attempt to walk in on her as well. When the water had grown cold and he still hadn't shown up, she went to bed with wrinkled fingers and a disappointed sigh. It had made for a lot of drama in the girls' bedroom—all of which Quistis found intensely amusing.

Growing up as an only child (and, subsequently, as an orphan) had left her with a deep longing for a normal family life. In particular, she envied Squall his sister, Ellone. After losing her parents, Quistis had liked to pretend that Ellone was her "Sis" too. In her mind, they cried together during the night and played games during the day. Those childhood fantasies lingered even into her teenage years when she'd so desperately wanted someone to talk about boys with, share clothes with, and be a regular girl with outside of her strict, formal training inside the temple.

Rinoa and Fujin seemed a pale echo of that dream—the closest she'd ever come to knowing solid and intimate female companionship.

At the moment, however, Quistis wanted some privacy in which to change out of her icy wet clothes. A huge tree flanked one side of their camp, its trunk so thick that she didn't think three people linking hands could reach all the way around it. As good a prospect for a moment out of eye-sight as any, she supposed, and started toward it, her bag slung over one shoulder.

"Where are you going?" Seifer asked before she'd even managed five steps.

"To change. I'll be back in a second."

His tone turned imperious: "You can't go into the woods alone."

She paused mid-stride to turn and face him. "Excuse me?"

"Remember what happened the last time you decided to step off the beaten path?" he asked, his arms crossed.

"Yeah. I seem to recall single-handedly conquering an ancient and powerful aeon in battle," she replied, hands on her hips.

"An aeon that could have killed you." His scowl created dramatic shadows across his face in the firelight.

"What are you trying to say? That I'm incompetent? Or that you want to come with me?"

From across the camp, Rinoa's head peeked over the fire at this new development, her eyes huge.

"No," he quickly backpedaled. "But someone should. This forest isn't as peaceful as it looks, and one of us ought to be with you to keep an eye out for trouble. Fujin will go with you. Won't you, Fu?"

He turned to her, but she refused to meet his gaze. Apparently, Fujin would be doing him no favors today.

"Rinoa?" he asked, hopeful. "How about you?"

"Me? Um...sorry. I'm a bit occupied at the moment," she replied through a huge grin. "Afraid you're going to have to keep an eye on her yourself if you're that concerned, _Sir Almasy_."

Freezing and all too aware that she could have ducked behind the tree, changed, and been back by the fire in the amount of time that Seifer had insisted in arguing over it, Quistis decided to cut her losses and pushed her way into the scrubby, waist high bushes. She didn't think anyone would bother to follow. But a second later, she heard noisy footsteps crashing after her—Seifer, obviously; no one else could manage to sound so hostile merely by walking.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to look," he said preemptively as he came up behind her. The foliage pressing in around them forced him to stand closer to her than he appeared comfortable with. "Just...hurry up and let me know when you're done." He dropped his own bag to the ground and turned his back on her.

Kilikans in general had a rather lax attitude toward nudity, so Quistis didn't angst much over stripping down to her underwear while Seifer did the same behind her. But she did feel put out by his attitude and the presumption behind it...that she couldn't take care of herself. How could he expect her to face Sin if he didn't so much as trust her to put on a pair of pants without supervision? He had to think her capable of completing the final summoning at least. Perhaps he thought that the summoning itself required minimal skill and that the journey represented the real hardship. She could fathom no other explanation for the conflicting images he appeared to have of her in his head.

She pulled on a dry shirt, then reached behind her head and unlatched her hair clip. She ruffled her fingers through her long, wet hair to separate the strands so that they'd dry, then took a deep, comforting breath and stood still for a moment, looking out through the trees. Tiny specks of tree cotton drifted through the air, catching the light and flashing like fireflies. The ground under her bare feet felt spongy with moss. And as her clammy skin began to warm under fresh clothes, her mood lifted, too.

Since she'd made no promises, she peeked over her shoulder at Seifer.

His wide, bare back met her gaze. Just a glimpse as he tugged a dark blue shirt down over his head.

"Are you done?" he asked before he even had it smoothed out over his stomach.

She considered making him stand there and wait as punishment for treating her so high-handedly. But she wanted to get back to the fire and recognized that at least some of his attitude might stem from how badly she'd spooked him the day before. So she gathered her wet clothes up with her boots and replied, "Yep. All done."

Together, they picked their way back to the camp.

Once everyone had changed, Raijn cooked dinner. Quistis ate with her toes close to the fire. They stung with the heat. Finally, when she felt full and warm and dry, she stretched her hands above her head and yawned. Bedding seemed incidental as she lay back against the warm forest floor, ready to give into the day's exhaustion.

Above her, Seifer and Squall argued over the merits of a set of blitzball moves that had been banned during their tenure—one called Fire Cross and the other called Rough Divide, both of which had apparently resulted in more injuries than points. She'd never heard Squall say so much so passionately in her entire life.

They were good for each other. Good for her, too.

But that didn't absolve her from doing the right thing come morning.

Knowing that she'd never get to enjoy a moment like this again, she pillowed her head on her arms and watched them through half-lidded eyes, their voices combined with the regular popping of the fire as soothing as any clear night in Kilika spent listening to the ocean waves lapping underneath the pier.

0 0 0

The night hadn't been long enough or the fire hot enough to completely dry Seifer's coat. He folded it carefully so that it wouldn't wrinkle in his pack. It meant a lot to him, both as a symbol and as one of his most cherished possessions. The flowing, light color complete with a flash of red emblazoned on each arm gave the garment the aspect of a warrior of light. And he liked seeing himself framed by its folds. Especially here. Especially now.

Once they broke camp, Quistis led the way into Macalania Woods. Strange fiends made their home among the trees, like amorphous blobs capable of shifting their defenses on a whim and fish-like creatures that swam through the air as if, from their perspective, the whole wood were underwater. The sensation of being submerged was enhanced by the way the foliage absorbed sound, creating a tangible hush.

And, unlike every other region of Spira, no ruins marked the landscape here.

Seifer wondered whether this wood had truly gone so long unchanged and undomesticated, or whether it had simply overgrown the last vestiges of what had once filled this wild place.

By mid-morning, they came to a fork in the road. One path curved and twisted, maze-like, through the trees. The other cut a wide, flat swath. Definitely the more traveled of the two. Rinoa broke from the group to stand in front of it.

"Well, this is my stop," she said. "Just a short walk from here to Bevelle's southern gate."

Quistis peered around her as if expecting to see the city there. "Are you sure you can make it the rest of the way on your own? The fiends here might still give you trouble."

"I know this road. It's safe," Rinoa replied. "The Forest Owls used to meet out here at night. That's how we got our name."

"Okay. So long as you're sure. You're certainly welcome to keep traveling with us if you want to though," Quistis said.

Seifer wondered at the tone of her voice. He'd got the impression early on that Quistis didn't care for Rinoa and had thought that she'd be delighted to see the other woman go her own way. But she sounded genuinely sad to say this goodbye.

Rinoa drew Quistis into a quick hug, whispered something in her ear, and then said, more loudly, "Thank you for escorting me this far. And good luck on your pilgrimage."

Seifer found himself next on her list of goodbyes. Her forceful hug startled him, but not half as much as the kiss she pressed to his cheek. He noted with some satisfaction that Quistis's mouth drew into a tight line. Still some jealousy and rivalry there, then. And over him. _Interesting._

"It was good to see you again," Rinoa said when she let him go. "I'd wondered about you since you left Bevelle." She pulled her necklace off, popped the chain open, and removed the ring he'd given her many months ago—a solid band he'd bought for a couple of gil while walking with her through a street fair one warm summer night. She pressed it into his palm. "This is yours. I don't think I should keep it anymore."

Embarrassed, partly because her return felt like rejection and partly because she'd called attention to his romantic gesture, he felt his face warm with a blush. He wanted to do the noble thing and tell her that it had been a gift, that she should keep it (as a memento or even just a reminder of what sort of men to avoid in the future...however she wanted to memorialize their time together). But he didn't do any of that, just shoved the ring deep in his pants pocket and nodded.

With that, Rinoa turned her attention to Squall. She held out her arms in invitation. When he didn't respond, she rocked on her heels for a second and then dropped her hands.

"I guess that's it then," she said, hiding whatever she felt at Squall's hard-heartedness.

With a little wave, she started down the road to Bevelle. She didn't look back and Seifer felt a surge of renewed respect for the girl.

Squall didn't even watch her go. He just stood there with his arms crossed and his head down. Not for the first time, Seifer wondered what the hell the man was thinking. From the way he smiled at her and bent so freely to her will, it was clear that he cared about Rinoa in whatever shallow manner he was capable. And he'd never been committed to Quistis's pilgrimage. So why the surge of duty over love now?

Once Rinoa was out of sight, Quistis crossed her arms and turned on Squall.

"During Operation Mi'ihen, you went back against orders to save her," she said. "Along the Moonflow, you stepped in to save her from Deling without even a moment's thought for your own safety. So why in the world are you standing there doing nothing now that you're actually losing her?" She pointed at him, full of fire. "You're a fool."

Squall looked up at her, surprised and confused. Seifer supposed he wore a similar expression.

"Go after her," Quistis said and pointed down the path to Bevelle.

Squall frowned. "I can't."

"Why? Because of me? I think you're only here because you're hoping to find some way to save me from myself. But I made these decisions a long time ago, Squall. Whatever chance you had to change them has already come and gone."

Shamed, he remained rooted in place, head down.

"I am not your responsibility," she announced. "My fate is out of your hands."

"All I want is for you to—" he started, but she interrupted.

"I know. I understand how you feel. For the first time, really. Which is why I realize now that you could never be a proper guardian to me. And this, right here, is where our paths split. I want you to go live your own life."

For a second, Seifer thought Squall would refuse to honor her request. But, at length, he nodded. Without any proselytizing, he offered Quistis an awkward handshake.

She used her grip on his hand to tug him into a one-armed embrace. "Goodbye," she whispered in his ear.

Astonished, Seifer watched his rival walk away—heading after Seifer's ex, sure, but leaving the more important corner of their little love-square behind.

Quistis had been reluctant to accept Seifer from the moment she'd laid eyes on him deep in Kilika's fire-filled temple. She'd tried to ditch him, tried to replace him, and had done everything in her power to make certain that he knew how much she resented the way he'd forced himself into her life. Now she'd picked him over the one person in the world she cared most about. Over the one person Seifer most wanted to rise above. It left him dizzy with relief. Then, as it sunk in, with victory.

"Ready to go?" she asked and gestured up the footpath leading to the temple.

Seifer could have swept her up off the ground and kissed her. Hell, he could have done a lot more than that. He felt so on top of the world that, had Raijin and Fujin not been right at his heels, he might have tackled her into the mossy undergrowth and given his conquering spirit the free rein it desired.

All of the doubts he'd entertained while crossing the Thunder Plains faded—pushed out by his unbridled delight and by the shifting of reality that much closer to the image he held of himself deep in his heart. Seifer Almasy: finally, almost, a hero.

0 0 0

Over the course of the day, Quistis's impression of Macalania Woods shifted from that of a peaceful forest to one filled with oppressive silence. The regular rhythm of her own steps and the lack of conversation among her guardians now that Rinoa had departed along with her upbeat chatter allowed Quistis's thoughts to drift inward. And, as usual when she found herself with a surplus of time to think, she found herself contemplating her upcoming battle with Sin—imagining how it might feel to come face to face with the monster that had killed her parents and what might be involved with the final summoning.

Would it be painful?

Would she feel fear? Or would the light of Yevon fill her with courage?

None of the priests at the temple had given her much advice on the subject, assuring her instead that all of her questions would be answered over the course of her journey. Yet, more than halfway to Zanarkand, she knew no more about how her life might end than she had on the day she left Kilika.

In this, again, Quistis envied Yuna, who counted Sir Auron among her guardians. He had come this way once before and knew what to expect. He could provide real answers. Real assurances. Something Quistis knew she would have to do without.

Dwelling on the subject would only drive her to despair; she'd learned that lesson well while still in training. The thirst for vengeance had fueled her through the best of times. But in between, when the reality of her approaching demise settled over her like lead, she'd known the primordial terror of the bull led to slaughter. Eventually she'd confided as much to one of the temple acolytes, an older woman named Kadowaki, who had reassured Quistis that all summoners had such doubts and then helped her to put them aside, in part by re-focusing her on what good her sacrifice could do for all of Spira.

What a thing to have to teach a thirteen year old girl.

Her thoughts had her feeling subdued and pensive when Seifer stopped the group to make camp for the night. He and Raijin tromped off into the trees to gather firewood while Quistis and Fujin cleared away underbrush from their campsite.

"QUIET," Fujin said.

"Yeah. It feels ominous after the constant noise of the Thunder Plains. Doesn't it?"

"NO." Fujin dusted off her hands. "YOU."

"Oh." Surprised that she'd noticed, Quistis shrugged. "Just thinking."

"SQUALL?"

"No. Nothing like that. I feel like I did the right thing with him. He belongs with Rinoa. Not here with me."

Seifer must have overheard at least part of their conversation because when he walked back into camp with an armload of dry wood, he dumped it into a pile at her feet and asked, "Why are we still talking about that loser? He's gone now. And good riddance."

"You don't miss him even a little bit?" Quistis asked as she started the fire. "You seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of antagonizing him."

He flashed her a cocky grin. "Yeah. Well, I get a lot of pleasure out of antagonizing you, too. You're on my list."

Whatever that meant.

As usual, they ate and then settled in around the fire for the night. Long days of hard travel meant that no one had much trouble getting comfortable, and while Seifer insisted that he'd sit up for a while and keep and eye out for fiends, everyone else went to sleep without preamble.

When Quistis awoke early the next morning, he'd given up his watch to lay with his head at her feet, out cold. No one else had woke yet. So she stirred the dying embers of the their fire, added some additional fuel, and then stepped into the trees to relieve herself.

Their campsite sat within sight of a clear-water lake. She walked up to its rocky shore and wet her hands in the cold, lapping waves. Her chill fingers and palms felt good when she pressed them against her face, so she dunked her hands one more time and splashed water down her neck as well. The steady surge of water over rocks reminded her of home. She sat down and relaxed back onto her hands. Fireflies blinked on and off, their light reflected by the water's surface, making it look like a pool of stars in the darkness.

Footsteps behind her announced Seifer's dogged presence.

"I woke up and you were gone," he said, still sounding a little groggy.

"That happens when guardians fall asleep on the job," she replied, teasing.

He rolled his eyes. "Do you know what time it is? I can't tell in this damn place. Looks the same at noon as it does at midnight."

"Sorry. No idea."

He sat down beside her. He wore his trench coat again and had to shift Hyperion into his lap.

"How long have you had that?" she asked, glancing at his long blade.

"Forever."

"Did you inherit it? From your father maybe?"

He scoffed. "No. I bought it with blitz money back when I was still thinking about becoming a chocobo knight."

"You fight as if you've been a swordsman all your life."

"I think I have been...just not always a practicing one," he replied. "I was born for battle. Don't you feel that way about your whip? Or about summoning?"

"Not really."

"What else do you think you're supposed to do?"

"It's not that I've got some other calling. But if my parents had somehow survived Sin's attack, I doubt I'd be here now. I was never religious beforehand. And I certainly hadn't considered a career in service to Yevon. All of this is just sheer coincidence."

"Some people call that fate," he said. He leaned back on his hands. "But I'll play—if your parents were still alive, what do you think you'd be?"

Quistis shrugged. "I liked school. So I figure I'd have become a teacher."

One side of Seifer's mouth quirked up at that. "You? A teacher?"

"Is there something wrong with that?" she asked, irritated.

"No. But...there's no way any adolescent boy could take you seriously."

"Why not?"

"Because," he said, drawing out the word as if it should be obvious. When she raised her eyebrows, still clueless, he elaborated, "Quistis—you're _hot_."

She vacillated between feeling absurdly flattered and defensive. "So?"

"So, any self-respecting teenage boy would sit in class all day wondering what's under your skirt rather than listening to your lesson. Well...except Squall. But he's a special case, having hit puberty so late..."

Quistis ignored the jab at Squall: "So long as I established my authority, I don't think it'd be that big of a deal..."

"There is no authority above a teenager's hormones," Seifer insisted. "Trust me. Plus, being the person in charge would only make you _more_ attractive. And I'm not even counting the whip into this equation. Add that and you'd have a whole herd of love-sick kids following your every move within a year, all of them hoping you'll ask them to stay after class one day for a little whip demonstration, if you know what I mean."

She flushed with embarrassment.

"That's why teachers are supposed to be old, matronly ladies. They gotta be someone no one will fantasize about bending over a desk. And you most definitely do _not_ fit the bill."

Her face grew even hotter and she pressed the back of her still cool hand to her cheek.

"I doubt that's what would have happened," she said, her voice weaker than she'd have preferred.

Seifer began to respond, but stopped to yelp in pain and cover the back of his head with one hand. A second later, something hit Quistis hard in the arm, then bounced to a stop a few feet away. She winced.

"What was that?" she asked.

Seifer got to his feet to look back at the camp and right as he turned around something thumped against his chest. He swore and bent over in pain.

This time, Quistis was able to follow the arc of the projectile with her eyes, tracing it up into the tree branches above where she spotted a silver haired, long-tailed monkey holding onto an armload of rocks. Immediately, it saw that Quistis had spotted it. With a shriek, it dropped all of its rocks in a small hailstorm and scampered for cover.

"Hey!" Seifer yelled up at it, one fist extended. "Get back here, you little bastard!"

The commotion roused Raijin and Fujin who sat up just in time to see Seifer dart off into the trees, yelling profanities. No time to stop and explain—Quistis ran after him. The monkey flew with the speed and grace of a bird from one branch to another, its advantage so clear that it stopped from time to time to look back over its shoulder. Once, it even tossed something backward at Seifer's furious form, struggling through the thick brush after it. His wide wake made him easy to follow. But he managed to keep pace ahead of Quistis so that she ran after him at full tilt, errant bits of foliage catching in her hair and scraping her arms, but didn't catch up.

Far ahead, he lurched to a stop. She came up behind him and put one hand on his shoulder to discourage him from bolting again. Above them, the monkey swung down to a low-hanging branch and then dropped to the ground. It ran on all fours over to a figure sitting ahead of them on a mossy stump.

The man wore overalls, boots, and a weather beaten fisherman's cap. He had what looked like the broken branch of a tree in one hand and a skinny, long blade in the other. The monkey scrambled up his pant leg, heading toward the protected enclosure of his lap.

Startled, the man jumped to his feet. The monkey clung to his belt-loops.

"What in the world...?" Quistis felt as if she must be seeing an apparition.

Seifer did not seem bothered by the odd turn of events: "Hey! Whoever you are—" he called out. "Hand over the monkey!"

The poor man dropped his stick and put a protective hand over the creature's back. "What?" he managed to choke past his astonishment. He looked baffled but peaceful. He didn't raise his knife in response to Seifer's shouting, just did what he could to protect the tiny animal now in his care.

Seifer began to repeat himself, slowly as if talking to a mentally challenged foreigner. Eager to prevent further incident, Quistis interrupted him, pushing him to the side so that he knew without any doubt that she wanted him to shut up.

"I'm sorry. We didn't mean to startle you. We're just passing through on our way to the temple," she explained.

The man's aged face contorted with even more confusion. "Then what do you want with Mr. Monkey?"

 _Mr. Monkey?_

Seifer and Quistis exchanged incredulous looks.

"The little monster decided to hang out about our camp and throw rocks at us," Seifer said, thankfully leaving out any description of what he intended to do once he got his hands on the animal.

Immediately, the man's expression softened, an apologetic and embarrassed blush apparent on his pale, tissue paper thin cheeks. "Oh dear. He does that sometimes. I haven't been able to break him of the habit, unfortunately. Did anyone get hurt?"

"No. We're fine," Quistis replied, though Seifer grumbled.

"Thank goodness. I try to keep and eye on him, but..." The man trailed off as the sound of approaching footsteps reached him. A moment later, Raijin and Fujin arrived, still alarmed and confused after having followed the path they'd left through the woods in their haste. When Raijin spotted the man holding the monkey, he made no effort at hiding his surprise.

"Who's that?" he asked, his jaw slack. "I thought nobody lived out here, ya know?"

"There's plenty of people who live out here," the man replied, sounding insulted.

"There are?" Quistis said.

"Of course there are." He made sure Mr. Monkey had a good grip on his waist, then bent down and retrieved his stick. He pointed with it back along a thin, dirt track that winded away behind him. "I live on the other side of those trees there, in Whittler's Glen."

"You mean there's an entire city here?" Quistis asked, her astonishment ranging toward doubtful.

He gestured them along. "Sure. Come on. I'll show you. By way of apology, you understand. For Mr. Monkey's transgression."

As they followed the man, the monkey peeked around his hip at Seifer who scowled menacingly at it and made a wringing motion with his hands.

The entire situation struck Quistis as entirely surreal. She couldn't fathom how anyone could live out their lives in such a claustrophobic, overgrown place. How long had it been since this man had seen the sun, she wondered? Who would want to live such a life? She imagined Whittler's Glen as nothing more than a collection of huts, a tiny hermitage with no more than half a dozen residents who had forgotten what a real city looked like.

That assessment failed her completely.

The man led them to a forest metropolis: expansive networks of tree houses linked with bridges filled the canopy while stone and mortar buildings covered much of the ground, all of it linked to a huge tower by black cables thick as dangling vines. Quistis guessed that these supplied power to the lights that cast a warm glow over the city and illuminated every window as far as she could see.

"How long has this been here?" she asked, breathless.

"Dunno. A thousand years, I'd guess," the man replied.

"How come I've never heard of it then?" Seifer asked.

"Probably because we keep to ourselves. Don't get many visitors either," he added, a fact which had already become evident to Quistis as people began crowding the treetop walkways to stare. "I'll take you to meet our mayor. He can tell you a lot more than I can."

He guided them to a metal staircase that climbed up a thick tree trunk. It felt strange to move up the spiral, traveling vertically through Whittler's Glen—out of what Quistis judged to be the municipal ground level of town and into the lofty residential portion. At the top of the staircase, an older man dressed similarly to their guide sat with his legs dangling off one of the tree house platforms, working wood and letting the shavings drop down below. Almost every house, Quistis noticed, had custom crafted decorations like the one in his hand.

When they arrived at the mayor's house, their guide knocked on the door using the butt end of his carving knife.

The man who answered stood hunched over and wore a light, tropical themed button-up shirt that looked incongruous against the backdrop of his home. He also wore open-toed sandals and shorts...evidently not a blue collar member of the community. Quistis supposed that he didn't venture away from the city much.

The man introduced himself as Mayor Dobe and invited them in. The wide open floor plan of his house reminded Quistis of her own back in Kilika.

A middle aged woman with a shaggy mane of graying hair walked into the room dusting her hands off with a dishtowel.

"This is my wife, Flo," Dobe said.

After introductions all around, Dobe invited them to sit down, so she did on a small couch whose frame had been hand carved from a single piece of honey colored wood. Seifer squeezed himself in next to her and it creaked under his weight. Raijin and Fujin elected to stay standing, as did their guide. Although the monkey let go of the man's waist to run off into an adjoining room.

"I have to admit," Quistis said, "I had no idea your city even existed."

Dobe smiled. "That's by design. We prefer not to be bothered by outside influences."

"What do you mean?"

"Whittler's Glen was founded by a group of people from Bevelle who wanted no part of the machina war with Zanarkand," he explained. "Our ancestors figured the forest would keep us sheltered from the violence. And it did. Peace is paramount here."

"The machina war has been over for eons," Seifer pointed out. "There's no reason to keep hiding."

"We're not hiding," Flo said. "We like it here."

"Right," Dobe agreed. "That war may be over. But that doesn't mean the world isn't still full of violence." He gestured to the weapons at their sides as proof. Any other Spiran would have considered them basic traveling gear.

"How do you protect your city from fiends? Kindly ask them to go away?" Seifer asked.

"They don't bother us," Dobe replied, the lofty position of his chin making it obvious that he attributed this fact to their chosen way of life, though Quistis thought it more plausible that the forest-dwelling fiends disliked the city's lights more than they respected the pure hearts of its residents.

"Still doesn't seem worth living in the dark, cut off from the rest of the world," Seifer said. "You're missing out on more than you realize."

"Maybe. But we have something no one out there does," Dobe replied. "Security. No one in Whittler's Glen knows the fear you live with every day. Of fiends. Or of Sin."

Quistis smiled. "Well, I aim to give that to the rest of Spira. We are on pilgrimage to Zanarkand."

"You're a summoner?" Dobe said, all of the friendliness draining out of his demeanor. Behind him, Flo looked so pale at the revelation that Quistis thought she might faint.

"That's right," Seifer said. "You guys talk about peace. But we actually deliver it."

The man who had guided them out of the woods and into the city looked confused. "What's a summoner?" he asked, his eyes darting back and forth between Dobe and Flo, both of whom ignored him.

"Is that what you think?" Dobe said. "Summoners have a history deeper than that of the church that now controls them, you know. In the time of the machina war, they were among Zanarkand's premier soldiers. Yevon, a summoner himself, brought Sin into this world."

"That's not true," Quistis snapped. Though aware that her church had its problems, she nevertheless felt the need to rise up in its defense. And she could think of no greater insult than to imply that Yevon himself—the very one who had taught Spira how to beat back the specter of Sin—had once been its creator.

"It is true. Summoners have been responsible for unprecedented death and destruction."

"Yeah? Tell that to the millions of people out there who rely on people like her for the few years of peace they're able to get," Seifer said, his adversarial tone helping to soothe Quistis's bruised faith.

Dobe shook his head and looked her in the eye. "You don't even know what it is you've been trained to do. You think you're saving the world, but you're just throwing yourself into a flood...keeping the cycle of violence going. Even if you do everything Yevon tells you, Sin will come back. Because it's not the aeon turned feral beast that's the problem. It's the war-mongering summoner at its heart."

Unable to take any more, Quistis stood up. "You're right. I think we should go."

"Please do," Dobe replied, his voice hard. "And tell no one at the temple that you've been here. I'd rather your Yevonite brethren not bring their battle to the last peaceful place in all Spira as well."

When Quistis turned to go, she noticed the man who she'd met out in the forest now regarding her as if he'd just learned that she'd personally ordered Sin on its path of death and destruction. She'd never been feared before and the sensation bothered her.

Dobe personally saw them out of the city and back to the trail that would take them to the main road leading to the temple. Then he stood and watched while they walked away, as if he thought she might turn around and crush the whole city to embers with her aeon just to punish them for daring to retreat from the fight.

In truth, she could see the appeal of their lifestyle. They had what the rest of Spira desperately wanted. And she didn't blame them for not wanting to face the daily terror of fiends and Sin. But at the same time, she didn't understand how they could ignore the suffering in the rest of the world. How any people claiming to love peace could allow themselves to become so inured to the desperate plight of so many.

Seifer complained loudly, calling them cowards and worse as they walked.

Raijin and Fujin agreed. The two of them seemed particularly bothered by Dobe's blaspheming of Yevon and summoners. "Sin sure isn't going to up and disappear if we all sit on our hands the way these Whittler people do, ya know?" Raijin said. "Everyone knows the only way _that_ will happen is through Yevon's teachings."

Except the Al Bhed, Quistis thought. And, up until recently, the Guado. Perhaps even the Hypello had their own theories—she didn't think anyone had ever bothered to ask one.

And she couldn't help but recall the path that Yevon and his church had taken so many Crusaders down on Mushroom Rock Road. She hadn't forgotten the thousands who died there. Or the fact that Maesters Kinoc and Seymour had endorsed the operation.

The Whittler's Glen people had been cut off from the rest of the world since before Zanarkand fell. Since before Sin itself. Maybe, she thought with a hint of painful doubt, they had a clearer memory of those events. Maybe they knew something that had been lost down the centuries to the unfaithful preaching of Yevon's followers.

The temple's teachings represented everything she relied on to orient herself in this world, to make meaning out of her death.

Her misgivings made her stomach twist. Guilt rushed in at her weakness.

This was not the time for a crisis of faith.

Sir Auron knew the truth, she reminded herself. He knew Sin face to face. Knew the final summoning. And he still accompanied Yuna on her path there. That had to mean something. He couldn't think like Mayor Dobe that Yevon sat at the root of Sin's evil. Yuna herself meant to marry a maester, for goodness sake. So it couldn't be true.

"That idiot didn't get to you, did he?" Seifer asked.

She looked up to find him looking back at her, his expression concerned and (she thought) a little disappointed.

"No. Of course not," she replied.

"Good. Because I'd hate to have to leave you behind to whittle the rest of your days away, talking crazy shit about the power of peace." He put a hand on her back to guide her to the front of the group. "There's just no way we could be manipulated into thinking we're the good guys in this when we're not," he continued. "Trust me."


	9. Bevelle

Chapter 9: Bevelle

As usual, Quistis needed time to recuperate after several hours spent puzzling her way through the Cloister of Trials and praying to the fayth in the recesses of Macalania's temple. While she slept huddled in a ball under a mountain of heavy quilts, Seifer spent his time roaming the temple grounds. A narrow path bridged the gap between Macalania's northern ice fields to the outcropping of rock on top of which the temple had been built. Below stretched a vast lake kept perpetually frozen by the fayth's otherworldly power, if the temple acolytes could be believed.

Chatter among the acolytes also suggested Maester Seymour's presence in the area, but Seifer never saw him. And when Quistis awoke, no longer flushed pale with cold, she announced that they would depart without waiting to greet the holy man. Seifer got the impression that she still hadn't forgiven Seymour for the role he had played in Operation Mi'ihen.

The trip back through Macalania Woods took a day and a half.

Finally, they reached the junction where days before they had parted ways with Squall and Rinoa. Since sending her childhood love off after another woman, Quistis had grown increasingly withdrawn. She obviously missed him. Maybe even regretted her decision. Although whenever Seifer asked about it, she insisted that Squall had nothing to do with her sudden mood. Fujin liked to kick him every time he brought it up, so Seifer had decided to let it drop.

Now he fought the desire to remind her yet again that Squall had abandoned her in Kilika, that he didn't care about her quest the way Seifer did, that there was no need to seek out either of their erstwhile companions while in Bevelle. It took a monumental effort for him—usually so outspoken—to keep his thoughts to himself.

It didn't take long before they caught up to another group of travelers. Not a summoner and guardians, but a group of female Yevonites who chattered like birds as they walked. A long suffering older man who might have been a retired Crusader or one of the women's fathers walked with them.

One of the women turned around when she noticed Quistis coming up behind them. "Isn't it exciting?" she said, her hands clasped together in front of her.

"What?"

"The wedding!"

Quistis glanced back at Seifer for a moment, the expression on her face half amused and half revolted. "You mean the wedding between..." she started, but the woman interrupted her.

"Maester Seymour and Lady Yuna! Of course! We were in Guadosalam visiting the Farplane when we heard and knew we had to come. I mean...finally, something to cheer about other than blitzball. Right?" She grinned and managed to walk backwards without holding up her group at all. "Hey," she continued, realization dawning across her face as she paused to take in Quistis's appearance. "You're a summoner! You're not like...a special guest of Lady Yuna's, are you?"

"Afraid not," Quistis replied.

The woman lost some interest in their group after that.

Seifer had suspected for days that their stay in Bevelle would be painful. Now he knew for certain. Even if they managed to avoid running into Squall, Rinoa, Maester Caraway, or a whole host of other people he'd hoped never to see again, they were guaranteed to encounter brainless Yevonite wedding-watchers just about everywhere. Which was almost as bad.

A couple of guards flanked the path leading into the city. They looked irritated—one of them trying to give directions to a Hypello pulling a cart of party supplies and the other telling a man with a huge green pack bundled onto his back that by law he wasn't allowed to sell his wares within the city limits.

The crush of people only increased when they passed through the city gate. Tourists wandered aimlessly, their eyes wide and their wallets open. Shops had plastered posters to their doors featuring poorly drawn renditions of the happy couple—Seymour's depiction somewhat too kind and Yuna's not nearly kind enough. One shop thronged with visitors had a display window filled with hastily painted commemorative plates, dolls, and embossed coins stamped out of cheap metal.

"They're sure making a spectacle out of this," Seifer said. "I don't see what's so thrilling. Just two people getting hitched. Happens every day."

Quistis shrugged. "Love's as good of a reason to celebrate as any. This is overblown. But it's also kind of nice."

"You really think they're in love?"

"Sure. They're getting married."

Seifer shook his head. "Stinks of being arranged to me."

"Why?"

"Aside from the fact that someone like Yuna would never fall for someone like Seymour? It's just too convenient. Like it's been specially planned to give people something to talk about other than Sin."

"I think everyone would rather not have to think about Sin for a few days," Quistis replied.

The first three hotels they found were all booked solid. So they ended up on the far side of town in a seedy looking motel snuggled in between a women's lingerie shop and (judging from the smell) a sub-standard sushi restaurant.

"Still better than the ground, ya know?" Raijin said as they walked into their room.

"Not by much," Seifer replied.

Having hot water, he later had to admit, was a nice change of pace. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, scrubbed pink and smelling like the flowery motel-brand soap he'd all but dissolved away on days of accumulated dirt, he had no trouble making himself comfortable on the hard mattress. Until Raijin joined him, anyway—the two of them slightly too big to fit comfortably side by side on the narrow bed.

The next morning, they left for the temple.

Bevelle's religious corridor proved no less busy than the downtown streets and malls. Most of the faithful come to witness the nuptials also appeared eager to pay a visit to the heart of Yevon on Spira. Everywhere, people bent in prayer, the Hymn of Fayth on their lips. They found the doorway into the temple clogged, two acolytes attempting to wrangle the masses into an orderly line. With some effort, Quistis managed to flag one of them down.

"Lady Summoner," the acolyte said and bowed. "I'm sorry. We've been a little busy."

"I can see that," Quistis said and bowed back, though not as deeply. "I'd like to get in to pray to the fayth."

The acolyte frowned. "I don't know if that will be possible..."

"Is someone else in the chamber?"

"No. It's not that. It's on account of all the visitors. Maester Mika has temporarily ordered the cloister locked."

"Can he do that?" Seifer asked.

Quistis and the acolyte both nodded.

"But...your pilgrimage is more important than some stupid wedding."

The acolyte held up her hands helplessly. "There's nothing I can do. I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few days before you'll be able to pray here. I'm sorry."

"At least there's plenty to do to pass the time, ya know?" Raijin said when the acolyte walked away to return to her shepherding duties.

"Technically, we could just move on," Quistis said, a thoughtful look on her face.

"What do you mean?" Seifer asked.

"There's no requirement that I have to visit every temple and pray to every fayth in Spira. In fact, that's not even possible anymore. A lot of the fayth have been lost or their temples destroyed. I skipped Besaid's temple. I can skip Bevelle's too, if I want."

"Skipping over a provincial backwater like Besaid and the Heart of Yevon aren't really comparable," Seifer said, doubtful.

"It's unorthodox," she agreed. "But I feel like..."

She sighed and didn't finish her sentence. Seifer wished she would. Much of her thoughts recently had been a mystery to him and he wanted to get some handle on exactly what was going on inside her pretty blonde head.

"Don't get me wrong, I've got no problem with getting the hell out of Bevelle," Seifer said. "But we need to restock anyway. So we might as well wait around for a day or two and see if they open this place back up." No good getting to Zanarkand a few days faster only to end up there unprepared, he thought. He didn't mind dying. But not for nothing.

"I suppose," Quistis replied after a moment's hesitation.

On the way back to the hotel, Seifer walked behind her so that he could stare down at the top of her head and puzzle over her attitude without being observed. They passed by a street fair opening for the day which drew her attention for a second, slowing her pace by half and making her glance over her shoulder at it until she noticed Seifer close at her heels. Then her head snapped back around and they made their way toward the mall with single-minded purpose.

When they finished shopping, they returned to the hotel.

"I'm going to take a bath," Quistis said right as she walked in the door. She dropped her bags at the foot of her bed and walked into the bathroom without looking back. A moment later, Seifer heard the water turn on.

"What's got her panties in a twist?" he asked, directing the question more at the universe than anyone standing in the room.

Fujin responded anyway. "FEAR."

"Fear? Of what?"

She rolled her good, unpatched eye. "SIN."

"That doesn't make sense," Seifer replied with a frown. "She's been preparing to face Sin her entire life. Why would she get scared now? I mean...it's not like she didn't know what going on a pilgrimage meant."

"Maybe it's just hit her, ya know?" Raijin offered. "Like...nerves the night before a big game."

Seifer still didn't quite believe it. "Did she tell you guys she felt that way?"

"NO."

"Then what makes you think—?"

"OBVIOUS."

Maybe to some people. Certainly not to him. But he knew that if Fujin's assessment was correct, if Quistis was beginning to have real doubts and fears about facing Sin and performing the final summoning, he needed to do something about it. He had to keep her on track. And if that meant distracting her from her own destructive thoughts, that's what he had to do.

They had gil left over after buying all of the supplies that Seifer figured would get them all the way to Zanarkand. Plenty to buy admission and a night of entertainment at the street fair they had passed.

He walked over to the bathroom door and pounded on it with his fist.

The door popped open and Quistis stood on the other side, a white towel wrapped around her body and a tired glare on her face. "Do you have some kind of problem with the idea of someone relaxing in a hot bath? Because this is the second time you've interrupted one in the past few days."

"No. I just don't want you to spend the whole night in there."

"Why? What's it matter?"

"Because we're going out. Somewhere special," he told her with a grin. "So get cleaned up. We'll wait."

0 0 0

Rather than relax, Quistis spent her time in the bath wondering what Seifer had planned. A special place to him could constitute any number of things, and he'd spent enough time with Rinoa and her rebellious friends to learn all of Bevelle's shadowy nooks and crannies. Did he plan to take her to a club—perhaps the place that Rinoa had recalled when they'd visited NORG's Bar in Guadosalam? Or maybe he still had friends in the area that he wanted to take her to meet. For a minute, she even entertained the notion that he might know a secret way into the temple's cloister.

"Am I going to need my weapon for this little outing?" she asked when she walked out of the bathroom, her wet hair still wrapped up in a towel.

"Always a good idea to carry one just in case," Seifer replied. "But...probably not."

So, not a back entrance into the temple, then.

She let down and brushed her hair, then pulled her black satin summoner's ribbon out of her bag and began to tie it in a bow about her hips. Seifer walked over and stopped her hands, then pulled the sleek ribbon out of her grasp.

"Let's not be a summoner and guardians today," he said and dropped the identifying ribbon onto the bed. "Don't want to draw too much attention from the crazy wedding-goers," he added, making Quistis think of the woman at the city gate who had assumed that Quistis would be attending the wedding as a guest of Yuna's. As if somehow all summoners knew one another.

"Okay," she said, surprised at the reluctance she felt at leaving the ribbon behind. It had been a long time since she'd been seen in public without all the accoutrements of her station.

They left the motel and walked back toward the middle of the city—the same way that they had come back from the temple. When they arrived back at the street fair Quistis had noticed earlier, Seifer surprised her by walking over to the ticket booth and exchanging gil for four wrist bands. She tried not to gape at him as he wrapped hers around her wrist.

He'd noticed her interest in the fair and resolved to take her to it.

How... _utterly charming._

"Your wrist band will get you into tents and on rides," he told her. "But you have to pay at the booths."

Barely listening, Quistis nodded. Childish excitement made her want to jump up and down, grab him by the hand, and run into the fair at full tilt to see what new and exciting sights it had to offer. Already, she could see red and blue tent tops, flashing lights, and booths packed with candy. On the air, she smelled hot sugar, animal musk, and melted butter. A little girl ran past with a foil balloon displaying Maester Seymour's face.

Although the fair had up a number of posters and items depicting the happy couple, the fair itself looked to be a regular affair...not explicitly set up to celebrate the wedding.

"Where should we start?" she asked, feeling overwhelmed.

"FOOD."

"Yeah. I'm starving, ya know?"

Quistis drifted along, soaking up the sights, smells, and sounds of the fair as the rest of the group went from booth to booth, buying Raijin two chili dogs with the works, Fujin a bag of buttery popcorn, and Seifer a soft pretzel. He tore off a bits and handed them to Quistis—who ended up sampling everyone's food rather than getting her own.

A noisy, crowded dirt corral caught her attention.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing.

"Chocobo show," Seifer replied and shouldered his way through the crowd so that she could get a good look. Inside of the corral, a group of three women dressed in yellow leotards edged in white feathers galloped chocobos in tight formation. All three women stood mounted on their bird's back, their feet braced one on the bird's rump and the other between its shoulder blades. They held hands as their chocobos raced around the corral.

Then, with a clap, all three women let go of each others and hopped from one bird to another, switching mounts without missing a beat.

The crowd cheered. Quistis clapped and grinned.

The usual rules of physics didn't seem to apply to these women. They performed trick after trick, all of them at high speed, at one point even balancing on their hands and making shapes with their legs in the air like a group of synchronized swimmers.

Quistis could have stood and watched them all day. But after only a few minutes the women dismounted, waved, and shouted to the crowd that they would perform again in three hours. When they left the corral, some of the crowd thinned out. And two more chocobos were led in by a man dressed in an old-timey robe over a suit of armor.

"I am Lord Zaon!" he announced with a theatrical bow. "And I need an opponent. Any willing soldiers in this lovely audience?"

Zaon glanced over the crowd once, waiting for hands to raise. One kid, maybe only twelve, held his up high, waving it back and forth so that Seifer sighed with disgust and resignation before putting up his own. The performer narrowed in on him instantly.

"You!" he shouted. "You're perfect! Come on down and we'll get you suited up."

Amused, Quistis watched Seifer hop the corral fence as the crowd cheered for him. He had to shrug out of his coat to put on the mail shirt Zaon offered him. Then he drew on a helmet as well—black with a red plume.

"Now, as everyone knows, history's most epic battles were fought over the love of a maiden. Is there a Lady Yunalesca in the audience?"

For this request, a few dozen hands shot up into the air belonging to everyone from little girls to old women and everything in between. After making a show of looking over his choices, Zaon pointed to a young girl with red pigtails in the front row.

The performer helped her over the fence, lifting her across and setting her down in the dirt on the other side. Her little feet vanished into loosely packed floor of the corral, full of crushed chocobo droppings and bits of straw. She walked bow-legged as if over sand to where Seifer stood, now brandishing a halberd with what looked like a rubber tip. While the crowd hooted and cheered, the performer put a long, white wig on the little girl and gave her a necklace of blue stones with flowing streamers to put on.

Then he began to weave his tale.

"Zaon, proud defender of Zanarkand, challenged to battle by a warrior of Bevelle," his voice boomed as he pointed to Seifer. A huge cheer went up among the crowd, but for Zaon or Seifer—defender of Bevelle—Quistis wasn't sure.

The performer went on to set the scene: the city of Bevelle had captured Lady Yunalesca and deprived her of her aeons. Lord Zaon had been dispatched to rescue her. At the back of the corral, a group of kids moved cardboard props back and forth—mostly depictions of machina weapons falling to the ground and exploding.

The game was for Seifer, mounted on choco-back, to try and keep Zaon (also on choco-back) from reaching Lady Yunalesca.

Bird feet scrabbled through the dirt, throwing up a cloud when Zaon made his first pass. He rode just as flawlessly as the women who'd starred in the previous show. And though Seifer had some talent on his mount as well, the man easily out-maneuvered him, performing elaborate tricks the whole way.

The crowd laughed when Zaon tossed out a rope while passing by at full speed and looped the end of it around Seifer's shoulders. Quistis laughed, too. Zaon's chocobo whipped past her, a thundering blur of man and bird and then he was on the other side of the corral, standing in his stirrups, working the crowd into a lather.

Raijin cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Get 'em, Boss!"

Quistis and Fujin's voices joined his.

Seifer fought out of the rope and tossed it to the ground, then spun his rubber-tipped halberd around once in his right hand. Zaon missed the deft movement. Nor did he take much notice of the tensed, ready-to-pounce muscles bulging in Seifer's arms as he turned his mount and approached for another pass.

The performer was positioning for some sort of trick when Seifer kicked his chocobo into a gallop and intercepted him, swinging the blunt end of the halberd hard, lining it up with the inside of his arm to give it extra impact. The poor man grunted in complete surprise as the weapon hit him square in the middle and swept him right off the back of his chocobo into the dirt.

The audience, not sure for a second what they were seeing, remained hushed.

Seifer jumped his chocobo over the man's fallen body, raced back over to little Yunalesca, and bent down to loop one arm around her. With a heroic tug, he hauled her up into the saddle in front of him, then lifted his toy halberd in the air and turned to face the audience.

"VICTORY!" Fujin shouted.

The rest of the crowd laughed and clapped, cheering and whistling for the champion of Bevelle as he rode back and forth, brandishing his weapon with the lovely maiden in his arms.

In a startling display of showmanship, he then rode the chocobo over to the edge of the corral and handed a flushed, laughing Yunalesca down into her mother's arms.

The performer knew better than to burst the impression that the whole thing had been set up from the beginning, so he got up, dusted himself off, and bowed to the still mounted Seifer. Although Quistis saw the sour look on his face when he walked up to him and took back the halberd.

"Nice job!" Raijin said and clapped Seifer on the back he returned to their spot in the crowd. "You really showed that guy the difference between someone who plays at being hero and someone who really is one, ya know?"

"Yeah. The cocky little shit deserved to be put in his place," Seifer replied, soaking in the admiring looks from everyone around him with a self-satisfied grin.

"If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black...," Quistis said, smiling with her arms crossed.

"There's a difference when you've earned the right," he told her.

"Sure." She elbowed him. "Still, I admit...that was quite the display of knightly skill, Sir Seifer."

He grinned.

They'd all had enough of chocobos, and Quistis didn't want to spend more time than she had to around Seifer's growing legion of admirers, so they left the corral and walked deeper into the fair. They passed by a man with a trained monkey playing a tiny set of bongo drums. And they circled around a Yevonite forcibly handing out leaflets calling for the destruction of the blitzball pool in Luca, calling it a "machina monstrosity offensive to Yevon."

A man-made pond, thick with flowering lily pads and with a tall fountain at its middle marked the center of the fair. Beyond it, Quistis could see a strange assortment of contraptions, moving fast with blinking lights and people in baskets, screaming and laughing. A huge slide packed with people waiting to go down rose above it all.

The carnival rides turned them all into five-year-olds.

Quistis rode down the slide on top of a board with wheels, Seifer behind her and Fujin screaming the whole way down next to them. She waited in line three times to get on another ride which twirled swings around in a huge circle. And all four of them got on the merry-go-round with a group of children who elbowed them out of the way so that Seifer and Raijin got stuck sitting on one of the bench seats while Fujin rode a hard plastic chimera and Quistis rode a green, sprightly looking thing with a red jewel inset in its forehead.

She had never had so much fun in her entire life.

Seifer bought her a huge, frosty glass of lemonade which she sucked eagerly to soothe the itch in her throat from an afternoon spent whipping through the air, smiling and laughing.

"Does Bevelle have these fairs often?" she asked.

"Some of it's here year-round," Seifer replied. "Some of the vendors are probably just here to make a buck off this wedding bull."

All she'd known of Bevelle before setting out on her pilgrimage had revolved around the temple and Yevon. She'd thought it a somber town filled with priests and acolytes and those who most wanted to live near the ancient, beating heart of their faith. She hadn't anticipated a such a lively, secular city. Standing amongst the crush of happy people, she found it difficult to imagine Kilika out on the fringe, probably still recovering the dead and cutting wood to begin rebuilding.

Was this what life had been like before Sin?

Was this what life would be like when the monster was finally vanquished?

As the sun went down, the rides kept running, their lights making them all the more spectacular. She sat down on the fountain's edge to finish her lemonade and catch her breath.

"Is this what you and Rinoa did the summer you spent here?" she asked when Seifer sat down beside her. Raijin and Fujin got back in line to ride the slide.

"Uh...just once," he admitted, sounding reluctant. "She was more into plotting against her father than spending time enjoying life."

"Why is she so angry with him, anyway?"

He shrugged. "I never saw any point in trying to figure out how Rinoa's mind works."

"Well, I hope they manage to work things out between them. There's plenty of people who don't have a parent left. Seems a shame for her to push hers away."

Seifer scoffed. "Not all parents are good ones."

Surprised, she glanced at him. "You're speaking from experience?"

"My dad," he said after a moment. "I'm happy to put all of Spira between me and him. And if Sin snatched him while I was gone...can't say that it'd tear me up too much."

"Did your parents have...a bad relationship?" she asked, not sure how to politely ask whether or not it had been abusive.

"No. My mom was head over heels for the jerk."

"Then there must be something redeeming about him..."

"Not that I can see."

She sipped her lemonade until she began to draw air up the straw before working up the will to ask, "Your mother isn't around any more?"

Seifer's response was clipped: "She died."

His tone didn't invite any more prying into his family life, so she decided to let the issue drop. No point ruining a perfectly good evening with bad memories, after all. And she didn't want to think about death. She had plenty of time ahead of her to do that. Tonight was about life. Enjoyment. Happiness.

"Fujin and Raijin are going to be in that line for a while," she said. "Want to walk through the rest of the fair with me?"

Beyond the rides, a quieter portion stretched through a bit of a city park lit tonight by strings of lanterns. A band played on a small stage, a strange assortment of people who looked to themselves be part instrument. A few people danced together barefoot in the grass.

"This is wonderful," Quistis said and took in a deep breath. "Like a dream."

"I'm glad you're enjoying it."

"Why made you bring me here anyway?" she asked. "It seemed to come out of nowhere."

He shrugged. "You seemed sad."

Unable to restrain herself, Quistis reached out and grabbed his hand. She squeezed it hard and then ducked her head, embarrassed at the surge of affection that filled her. "Thank you," she said. "It means a lot to me...both that you noticed and that you cared enough to do something about it. This has been one of the best days of my life."

She flinched at how pathetic that sounded, but when she glanced up at Seifer she didn't notice any pity on his face. Rather, he looked down at her with an inscrutable expression that she'd never seen on him before.

"You know...I could have had a lot more fun with that Lord Zaon guy if you'd volunteered to be my Yunalesca," he finally said.

"Damsel in distress isn't really my style."

"Exactly. A spell or two from you added to the mix, and we could've rode that chocobo right out of the ring together."

"You do know that you were supposed to play the villain. Right?"

"Evil knights are people, too."

She laughed. "You're just misunderstood?"

"Of course."

The music stopped as the band finished a song. Above them, in the black, star-studded sky, a yellow firework exploded. Quistis had never seen one before and watched in amazement as sparks spread out and drifted slowly to earth. Another exploded just behind it, the boom rippling through her hair.

"Must be midnight," Seifer said. "The fair's about the close."

"What?" she looked at him with alarm, not wanting the night to be over.

"Time to say goodnight," one of the men on the stage announced, catching her attention.

The people gathered in the grass cheered as another firework exploded above them. And then more than half of the crowd grabbed the person nearest to them and embraced in a kiss. Puzzled, Quistis stared out over the sea of happy lovers, bringing the evening to a close the best way they knew how.

Seifer tugged on her hand and she turned to face him.

A moment later, he bent his head down and pressed his mouth to hers. Nothing could have surprised her more. He didn't finesse it. Just kissed her once and then lifted his head back up. Still, it left her reeling. She felt her face grow warm.

"It's tradition," he explained.

"Oh..." she breathed.

He dropped her hand and looked away from her, back toward the fair—although she saw him lick his lips.

"We should go find Raijin and Fujin. This place is going to close up any minute now."

"Right."

She followed after him, sad to see the night coming to an end but happier than she'd felt in over a decade. If she could have hauled him back into the grass and stayed there forever, she'd have wrapped her arms around him and never let go. But real-life called. Tonight, even that sobering thought couldn't suppress the smile on her face or the spring in her step.


	10. Calm Lands

Chapter 10: Calm Lands

The morning after the fair, Quistis lingered in bed long after everyone else got up. Raijin and Fujin left to get breakfast while Seifer sat vigil at the motel room table by the window, occupying himself by flipping through a travel guide. Content under a heavy quilt with just her toes sticking far enough out the bottom to keep from overheating, Quistis drifted back to sleep.

For a while, she dreamed. Memories of sleeping late as a girl while her parents laughed in the next room popped into her mind's eye, followed closely by sweet morsels from the night before: cotton candy, fireworks, and a kiss. Perhaps, her dream-mind suggested, Seifer would tire of his travel guide and consider kissing her again...rousing her from sleep like a fairy tale princess.

Before he had the chance, Raijin and Fujin returned. They carried between them four paper bags. The scent of bacon, eggs, hot coffee, sweet buns, and fresh baked bread mitigated most of Quistis's disappointment and drew her out from under the covers, her stomach rumbling.

"About damn time you got up. I was beginning to think you'd died," Seifer grumbled, his critical tone tempered somewhat by the delicate way he sipped at the steaming cup of coffee in his hands.

"Guess I was tired," she said and shrugged.

Everyone dug in. The sound of plastic forks scraping at paper plates filled the room.

A gulp of too-hot coffee washed down Quistis's eggs, and then she started on a sweet bun, pulling it apart with her fingers. It tasted so good, so satisfying, that she sighed and melted into her chair with pleasure. Life seemed full of joy this morning, rife with possibility. The feeling reminded her of childhood and first love, of those heady days before Sin's attack when it had first occurred to her that Squall could one day become more to her than merely the boy next door.

"Looks like the wedding's happening today," Raijin said between bites. "Maybe we can slip into the temple while everyone else is at the ceremony, ya know?"

"It's worth a shot," Quistis agreed.

"What's the plan if it's still closed?" Seifer asked. "Because a herd of wild chocobos couldn't drag me to see that damned wedding."

"Don't worry. That's not on the docket," Quistis assured him. "If the cloister is closed, we'll just move on."

"Move on?"

"To the Calm Lands."

He frowned at her. "You're still thinking about skipping the temple here? I thought we talked about that. We agreed that it's too important."

She sat back so that she could cross her legs. "I can't wait around here forever. And we didn't agree on anything."

In any other group of summoner and guardians, that would have settled the issue. But the stormy look on Seifer's face indicated that he'd fight her on it later if she didn't make the decision he wanted. Right now, their inevitable argument didn't bother her. She felt empowered. Relaxed. So she slowly finished her coffee, and when she finally felt ready to get on with her day, she excused herself to shower and change.

_What a difference a day makes_ , she thought as she gazed at herself in the circle she'd scrubbed free of steam on the bathroom mirror. Somehow, she'd regained her grip. Control and optimism had replaced all of her fear and doubt. Had it been the effect of the fair? Of Seifer? Or had that merely been the catalyst, she wondered, for some deeper transformation already in progress?

Dressed once again in her summoner's gear, she and her guardians checked out of the motel and walked down Bevelle's main thoroughfare toward the temple. Not as many people clogged the streets today, the majority already gathered to view the wedding.

When they arrived at the temple, they found it minimally staffed. Only two acolytes tended to the faithful who had elected to spend their afternoon praying to Yevon rather than celebrating his most famous followers. The temple in Bevelle, older by far than any of the others Quistis had visited thus far excluding, perhaps, the one where she'd discovered Odin, wasn't built according to the typical floor plan. Two wings flanked the main foyer, built up over the years into a massive building, the sacred levels of which extended down, deep underground, accessible only by lift.

At the moment, the lift was gone. Called to another floor.

"Lady Summoner." The same acolyte she'd talked to the day before bowed to her. "You are not attending the wedding?"

"No. I was hoping to spend the afternoon in your cloister."

The woman frowned and shook her head. "I'm sorry. Another summoner is currently in our chamber."

Seifer looked surprised. "Who?"

"He said his name was Isaaru."

"What? How long has he been in there?" Seifer demanded, clearly agitated by the fact that the other man had managed to overtake them on the pilgrim road and reach the temple first.

"Almost two hours now," the acolyte replied.

"Then he could be done any minute now, ya know?" Raijin said with his usual good cheer.

"Or he could be in there for the rest of the day," Quistis replied. It took hours merely to work through a temple's cloister, and that much time over again spent praying to the fayth. Isaaru might not emerge until dinner.

" _Quis-tis..._ " Seifer said, drawing her name out into a long and wary two syllables. "I know what you're thinking, and I don't want to hear it..."

_Too bad._

"It's time to move on," she said. From the beginning, she'd suspected that Bevelle would not pan out for her. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. With her emotional resurrection at the fair, she felt that the city had already given her what she most needed. Their aeon would prove no additional asset.

Seifer glared at her and opened his mouth, ready to argue. Then, amazingly, he closed it again without saying anything at all. For a moment, she waited for his newfound obedience to waver.

It didn't. He fell into line with little more than a pout. Quistis knew him well enough not to think even for a moment that he'd magically developed respect for her authority. More likely, she figured, his competitive nature had surged up to override his sensibility; he wanted to get ahead of Isaaru again.

In any case, sitting around in Bevelle waiting to get into the cloister would eventually frustrate him even more than her. He liked rushing into battle. Like to plot his strategy on the fly. Idleness didn't suit him.

Still, she half expected him to interrupt while she thanked the acolyte, or to grab her by the arm and drag her back through the door as she left the temple.

Instead he followed. Brooding, but silent.

A miracle.

Leaving town took no time at all compared to the slow going they'd experienced the day before. As they walked down the causeway leading into the forest, Quistis heard a mechanical roar overhead and looked up in time to see a huge flying form pass overhead. Its shadow moved across her and then through the city.

"Al Bhed? What would they be doing here?" she wondered aloud.

"STRANGE," Fujin agreed.

"Nah. It's probably nothing," Seifer said. "Bevelle's not as pious as you might think. They use machina when it suits them."

Quistis hoped he was exaggerating, criticizing the city out of frustration. But he lied transparently. And this statement rang uncomfortably true.

They left, passing under an archway and out, off the paved road onto spongy forest floor. The two guards stationed there glanced only briefly in their direction, then went back to their game of cards.

Up the path, the trees thinned, giving way to sparkling slabs of granite.

"Do you know anything about the Calm Lands?" she asked Seifer.

"Nope. Never been there. You?"

"Only what the stories say. My tutors in Kilika had never traveled this far north," she said, although the area didn't strike her as wholly unfamiliar. The newly opened expanse of road and grass and sandy rock reminded her more of home than anything else she'd seen in the past several weeks. The sun sat high in the sky, warm but not hot. Pleasant. As they climbed an embankment, the whisper of Quistis's boots through the tall grass made her smile.

At the top of the hill, they came to the edge of a cliff overlooking the whole of the Calm Lands and all sense of familiarity fled.

The Sin scarred landscape was bare of trees. Even after so many centuries, nothing but grass and wildflowers grew here. Between them, painful looking spires of dirt and rock and huge crevasses broken open like knife wounds in the planet's crust displayed the awful power of Sin in a way that not even her memories of Kilika's destruction could touch. The scrubbed and battered basin stretched for miles and would have gone all the way to the horizon if not for the towering shape of Mount Gagazet filling up the distance.

For a long moment, her entire team stood silent. Humbled.

"This final summoning business..." Raijin began. "It seems...uh...pretty intense, ya know?"

Quistis could do nothing but nod.

They found an easy path down the cliff. From the bottom, Quistis estimated that they'd be ale to reach the hazy form of the travel agency beyond sometime just after sunset so long as they didn't stop to eat or get delayed by the local fiends.

Raijin prattled away as they walked: "Back when I was on the Goers," he was saying, "I made friends with the Ronso team captain. Thought I'd try to be sporting, ya know? He turned out to be a pretty good guy. Sorta quiet. But that didn't bother me, ya know? I wonder if I'll see him on Mount Gagazet. It'd be nice to catch up."

"I've never met a Ronso," Quistis admitted, more in an effort to keep him talking than to engage in actual conversation. His chatter provided both a steady cadence against which to measure her steps and the cover under which she surveyed the deep cracks in the ground with a growing sense of concern-not for herself, but for her troop of guardians. Her own fate was certain. Now, for the first time, she wondered about Seifer's. About Raijin and Fujin's.

When they reached the travel agency that night, Quistis didn't feel ready for bed despite her physical exhaustion. So she dropped her things off on the room she'd be sharing with Fujin, then excused herself. In the lobby, she steeped a strong cup of unsweetened black tea before stepping out onto the agency's front stoop to drink it.

In the wide-open sky above, she could see all the universe's stars, including the wide, white ribbon that split the heavens in two.

She'd finished half of her tea and was lost in her thoughts when a sound from around the back of the agency caught her attention. Seifer emerged out of the darkness, dusting his hands off on his pants. When he spotted her standing there, he froze like a child caught misbehaving.

"Why aren't you in bed?" he asked.

"Why aren't you?"

"I was just checking out the...uh, agency's defenses," he said, lying. She didn't feel like prying the truth out of him, so she let it go.

"I thought I'd enjoy some tea before bed," she told him, then held out her still warm cup. "Want some?"

"No thanks."

He leaned with one arm against the wall and looked uncertain as to whether he should go inside and leave her alone or stay outside and keep her company. Quistis wanted him to stick around, so she took a shallow sip and said, "I'm surprised you didn't insist on staying in Bevelle. Aren't you worried I'm not going to be prepared to meet Sin?"

Looking out over the Calm Lands, she could see how he might now be questioning his decision to let her skip the temple there.

He shrugged, a sliver more helpless than nonchalant. "You'll be ready when we get there."

"Will you?"

He frowned, evidently uncertain of her exact meaning. "Of course, I will. I've been dreaming about this since I was a kid. Just like you."

"You know..." Quistis said slowly, turning her eyes back up to the stars, "I didn't like you very much when we first met."

He laughed. "Really? Tell me something I don't know."

_Okay._

She took a breath and said, "I don't feel the same way now. I respect you as a guardian. I've even come to enjoy your company at times. Like last night, at the fair." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other at that. "Fujin and Raijin, too," she added to defuse the tension.

He smirked. "You let Fujin and Raijin kiss you, too? And here I thought I was special..."

She nearly dropped her cup.

"I guess I can understand it. We're a damn likable bunch," he continued, amused. "Though I didn't peg you as the sort to just lay one on whoever leans in close enough."

To reinforce his point, he loomed close. Close enough, she thought, that he'd be able to smell the spices in her tea. Certainly close enough to see her blush in the diffused yellow light coming through the travel agency's windows.

"Don't tease me," she said, caught between laughter and embarrassment.

"Then don't make it so easy."

She lifted her cup to take a drink, using it as a barrier between them, and he retreated a step. It left her feeling disappointed. Had she been someone else, not a summoner on her way to die, she might have reached out and grabbed him by the lapel to drag him toward her again. If things had been different, had they met under different circumstances...

But they hadn't. So she let him move away.

"Don't stay out here too late," he told her. "We're hitting the road early tomorrow."

She nodded and watched him go inside. Once she finished her tea, she did, too. Fujin had already gone to bed, so she undressed in the dark and climbed into her own, then lay there staring up at the ceiling. All at once, she felt both warm and cold; her growing affection for Seifer fueling new, surprising questions about what would happen when they fought Sin.

Seifer had a knack for survival. Surely, he'd live. And he'd make sure his posse did, too. She had to believe in his abilities, not just care for him-as outrageous as that seemed. A mere month ago she would have struggled to imagine herself in this position: doubtful of his sword arm, yet confident in his heart.

_This is ridiculous_ , she told herself. _Just go to sleep._

0 0 0

The moment Seifer spotted the corral behind the travel agency, he knew that he'd be renting some chocobos to ride through the Calm Lands and up the snow-clogged pass that crossed Mount Gagazet. Quistis would delight in another opportunity to ride one. And he liked making her happy. So he got up early and worked out a deal with the Al Bhed at the front desk. By the time Quistis and Fujin emerged from their room, he had the mounts he'd picked out the night before harnessed, saddled, and ready.

Quistis laughed when she spotted the birds. "Well, that answers one question," she said, smiling at him.

"What question?" Raijin asked, clueless.

Fujin, however, leveled her uncanny, all-knowing gaze at Seifer and he got the distinct impression that she saw right through him. He tried not to let it concern him. It wasn't like she'd do or say anything to intervene, after all.

Quistis stretched in the warm, early morning sun, and then walked up to the four chocobos.

"This one is for you," he said, indicating a demure female.

She petted the bird's smooth beak. It cooed in response. Much the same way that Seifer did deep down inside when he found himself the object of her affection.

Feeling like a total wuss, he swung up onto his mount. Quistis didn't know how to ride, but she watched him closely and then repeated what she saw. Flawlessly. Perched tall and elegant in the saddle, she looked for all the world as seasoned a rider as anyone Seifer had ever met. Still, he ran her through the basics: to hold the reins in her left hand, keep her heels pointed down in the stirrups, relax her hips, and hold on with her knees.

The rapt, unblinking way she listened to and absorbed his instructions reminded him of her confession back in Macalania that if things had happened differently, she would have become a schoolteacher. He could see it in her now. The focus. The discipline. The thirst for knowledge.

When they left, she rode behind Seifer with confidence. And joy. Even though she didn't outright smile, he could see the exhilaration on her face.

After a while, he began to forget that she was inexperienced. He stopped riding cautiously, careful not to lose her, and relaxed into the day. They picked up speed. And as they approached a crack in the ground, he kicked his chocobo right at it, meaning to jump the gap.

The bird leapt and soared, its little wings doing nothing to gain altitude but slowing their descent so that they landed some distance away with a gentle thud.

Behind him, Quistis let out a girlish squeal he hadn't thought her capable of. He turned in time to catch her in mid-air, her right hand gripping the saddle as the big, satin bow at her side rippled in the wind. As a lighter load on a smaller bird, she soared further than Seifer had and landed several paces ahead of him.

"You okay?" he asked.

She answered by laughing and taking off at a full gallop. Fast learner, for sure. And fearless. Seifer grinned as he followed. This was the woman who would defeat Sin, he thought. And he'd be there with her. He'd never felt so lucky.

For a long time, they rode hard and fast. But eventually, Quistis's lack of experience caught up to her. She slowed and shifted back and forth in the saddle, clearly sore although she didn't admit to it when he asked. By the time they stopped that afternoon, she'd gone stiff. Her dismount, despite all of her effort, didn't show any of the flawless grace she'd possessed earlier that morning.

"It's a lot more work than it looks like. Isn't it?" she said with a bashful smile as she hobbled about in a circle, trying to limber up.

Since the Calm Lands didn't have any trees-or even woody shrubs-they didn't bother trying to build a fire. Thankfully, as the sun set, the night cooled only a little and a huge, white moon in the cloudless sky above cast enough light about that Seifer could make out individual blades of grass even in the dark.

They stretched out close to one another to sleep, Quistis and Fujin wedged between Seifer and Raijin. But no one was ready to drift off despite the long day.

Quistis and Fujin picked up a game they'd apparently learned from Rinoa while overnighting in the Thunder Plains, their voices and the soft murmurings of the chocobos filling the otherwise otherworldly silence. Raijin joined in, either not noticing or not caring that it was clearly a girl's game.

"Have you ever..." Quistis trailed off and hummed as she thought. "Oh! I know. Have you ever been in love?"

"NO."

"Really? Never? Not even for a minute? Not even something unrequited?"

"NO."

"Hm. How about you, Raijin?"

"I thought it was Fujin's turn to ask a question, ya know?"

"It is. But mine's a good one. And I'm curious. Have you ever been in love?"

Raijin stared up at the sky for a moment, looking bashful. "Well..." He hesitated. "Yeah. I just...I don't really like to talk about it, ya know?"

"Fair enough. Sorry." Quistis shifted on the hard ground. "Your turn, Fujin."

"Actually, I got one for you, ya know?"

"Okay. Shoot."

"Have you ever summoned one of your aeons just for fun?"

"Of course not. That would be unethical."

"But you could. If you wanted to, ya know?"

"Well...sure. Sometimes summoners are asked to bring forth their first aeon just to prove they were successful. But they're not something to trifle with. You've got to remember, aeons come from the fayth. They used to be people."

"If aeons are people, then what about the final summoning?" Raijin asked. "Who does that one come from, ya know?"

The question struck Quistis silent for a long time. "I don't know. Maybe...Lady Yunalesca. Maybe me. Which would make sense since to perform it I have to..."

She trailed off and Seifer could hear the frown in her voice. It surprised him to find that he was frowning, too. The touch of sadness at the thought of her dying during the final summoning made him uncomfortable. Better to change the subject. Fast.

"Okay. I've got a question to add to this game," he said.

"I thought this was a _sissy teenage girl's game_ " Quistis replied, doing a fair impression of him.

"It is. But I'm bored."

"You can admit it if you want to play. I won't think less of you," she teased. "Go ahead. What's your question?"

"Is there anything-"

Immediately, she interrupted him: "It has to start with, 'Have you ever?' That's the name of the game."

He sent her a withering look. "If I'm going to play at all, I'm going to do it my own way, or you can just count me out right now..."

"Okay. Fine. Ask away."

"Is there anything left on your list of things to do before fighting Sin?" She'd mentioned it to him once or twice before. Maybe, he thought, if he could fulfill another item on the list for her, it would alleviate some of the nonsensical guilt he was feeling.

"Yes..." she replied slowly. "A few things."

"Like what?"

"Private things. Why am I the one answering all the questions all of the sudden?"

"Private things as in...like, _private_ things?" he persisted, ignoring her question.

"I don't know what you're implying."

"SEX," Fujin supplied.

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Fu."

Beside him, Quistis had gone completely stiff and he knew without her admitting to anything that there were indeed some items of a very private nature on her list. Nothing he could fulfill, obviously...not that he felt morally opposed to such a thing, but he doubted she'd go there anytime soon. He wondered if she'd plotted for Puberty Boy to check those boxes for her on this trip and would have asked except that he thought she might kick him in the balls just for bringing it up.

"I think that's sad, ya know?" Raijin said, his tone wistful. "I mean...what? You've never been kissed?"

Quistis managed to grow even more tense. "No. It's not that," she managed.

Silently, Seifer grinned. He glanced over at Quistis only to find Fujin sitting up on her elbows, glaring at him. The woman knew exactly what had happened at the fair. No doubt about it. Likely, she knew that he'd done it for more than just tradition, too. Damn her.

"Do we have to talk about this right now?" Quistis asked. "We've got a long way to travel tomorrow. We should forget this silly game and try to get some sleep."

"I've said all along the game was stupid," Seifer couldn't help but add.

She huffed and pushed herself up off the ground. "I'm going to go check on the chocobos one last time," she announced before brushing dirt off her bottom and striding off in the direction of bird chatter. Her little blonde fishtail bounced in the moonlight.

"I think we hit a nerve, ya know?" Raijin said.

Fujin slugged him. "IDIOT."

There was no doubt in Seifer's mind that Quistis knew of her beauty and how to use it. She'd mentioned having many admirers in Kilika. And he believed her. But he also thought she'd saved herself for Squall and now stood here, in the twilight of her life, untouched. Propping his head on his arms, he looked up at the sky and thought of her under the bright, flashing lights of Bevelle's fireworks display.

For a long time, Quistis stayed with the chocobos. Too embarrassed to return, Seifer thought. Although that didn't seem like her. He'd been harassing her since he'd first met her, and she'd never sulked over it. At length, when she still didn't return, he sat up and squinted his eyes, trying to make her out in among the yellow backs of the gathered birds.

"Damn it," he grumbled. "Guess I'd better go get her."

"Tell her I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset her, ya know?"

They had tied the chocobos to one another and then hobbled them to a wooden stake in the ground. It wasn't something that would keep them from running off if they got it in their minds. But it kept the group from ambling away while they grazed on a patch of gyshall greens. His boots thumped across the ground as he approached and all at once, four sets of bird faces turned to look at him. As he got closer, he noticed that they'd pulled the stake free. Dirt encrusted, it dangled from the knot at the end of their reins. He stepped on the hole it had left as he approached.

"Quistis?"

He didn't see her standing among them.

Then the chocobo he'd ridden that day stepped toward him and in amongst the tightly clustered feet of the rest of the flock, lying on the ground, he spotted Quistis's boots and the gentle swell of her bottom.

"Sweet Yevon." He shoved the rest of the chocobos out of the way and dropped to his knees beside her. A huge, black, bulbous stinger protruded a hand's length out of her back from where it had pierced, sliding underneath her shoulder blade. The venom sack on the end sat shriveled and empty. She probably hadn't even seen the fiend that attacked her.

He glanced around, half expecting to see it skulking in the grass. Nothing but the chocobos looked back. They must have destroyed it, stomping the fiend to death with the killing claws on their feet.

"Quistis. Wake up." He shook her. Hard. Only a significant jostle would rouse her from the sleep spell.

With a groan, she stirred.

"Seifer? I... _ahhh!_ " The simple movement of her arm to lift herself up off the ground cast her into agony. Perhaps he should have let her sleep, he thought.

"You went and got yourself stung. It's still in your back. I'm going to pull it out," he told her.

The massive stinger fit in his hand like the hilt of a knife. And it made a terrible sucking sound as it came free, releasing a torrent of blood along with it. Quickly, he pressed his hand over the wound, then shifted so that he could roll her over into his lap.

"Heal yourself," he demanded, heat flowing disconcertingly over his palm and between his fingers.

"I don't know if I can. I feel really...really..." A dazed, dumb expression crossed her face. It chilled him to the bone.

"What?" He jostled her.

"Poison," she said faintly.

He had no idea if she was capable of casting a spell in such a state. But that quickly proved irrelevant; a few seconds later her eyes rolled back in her head and she wobbled out of consciousness.

"FUJIN! RAIJIN!" he bellowed. "GET OVER HERE!"

How long had she been out with poison coursing through her system? Damn it. He didn't know any magic and couldn't do anything for her without some supplies. Why had he let her wander off alone and stay gone so long without checking on her? What the hell kind of guardian let some shit like this happen while he lay a few feet away, daydreaming about kissing his ward?

"What's wrong? We came as fast as we could, ya know?"

"She's been poisoned. I need something to heal her. Quick!"

Both of them grabbed their bags and dumped them out on the ground. Fujin grabbed Seifer and Quistis's in order to rifle through them as well.

"POTION," she said and handed him a single bottle filled with blue-green liquid.

"Is that it?" he asked, amazed. "Don't we have any antidotes or whatever the hell you use to counter poison?"

"Sorry, man," Raijin said, helpless. "All I've got is a couple of potions, too."

Since it was better than nothing (but just barely), Seifer used his free hand to uncork the bottle and then tipped it slowly to her lips. The potion trickled into her mouth and either went straight down her throat or straight out the sides of her mouth-he couldn't tell which, but she didn't sputter, wake, or visibly swallow. The blood flow from the gash in her back seemed to slow, however.

"We have to get her back to the travel agency." They could keep the poison from outright killing her with the potions, but only until they ran out. Then, if she didn't regain her senses long enough to cure herself, they'd lose her completely. It didn't matter to Seifer what he had to do to keep that from happening. She was too precious. Too valuable.

Swearing under his breath at himself, Seifer shifted her into his arms as best as he could and, with Raijin's help, climbed up onto his chocobo. They lashed Quistis's now riderless bird to Fujin's and then, with no time to waste, they were off. The jarring bounce of the bird's gait should have roused Quistis. But she never moved. Only her pale, shallow breaths let him know that she was still alive.

Through the night, they pushed the chocobos hard. One of them would come up lame soon under the pressure. But still, he urged them along, stopping only to allow them a moment's respite while he fed Quistis another potion. It didn't take long before he'd used up their meager supply. When the sky turned yellow with the coming dawn, he still couldn't make out the agency along the horizon. And he began to despair.

"Can't be much further," he said, both to himself and to her, although she couldn't hear.

The sun was shining bright when he spotted something moving ahead. It took him a moment before he recognized the figures as people rather than fiends. Travelers? All the way out here? He dropped the reins to shade his eyes for a closer look and made out the telltale silhouette of a summoner's bow.

Dona and Barthello.

She still wore the same ridiculous dress that showed more than it covered. And her pilgrimage hadn't humbled her any. When she noticed Seifer approaching hell-bent-for-leather on choco-back, she sneered and set her hands on her hips, ready to start a pissing match. The expression faltered, however, when she noticed Quistis slung limp over his saddle.

"What happened?" she asked, concerned while still sounding judgmental. "She's not dead. Is she?"

"Of course not," Seifer snapped. "She's been poisoned."

Dona raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you just heal her? Or give her an antidote?"

Some of Seifer's teeth threatened to crack with as hard as he ground them together. "We don't have any antidotes. And only she knows white magic."

"Are you trying to tell me that out of the four of you, only _she_ can heal an injury?"

Seifer glared at her.

"Brilliant," Dona drawled. "Get her down off that oversized bird and I'll see what I can do."

Seifer dismounted without help, then handed his reins off to Raijin. Humiliated and terrified, he settled Quistis on the ground in front of Dona. The hand he'd held pressed to her back all this time came away with some effort. Underneath, she'd stopped bleeding. Instead, the flesh of the wound had begun to turn necrotic. Would that heal? He didn't know.

The two summoners struck an odd tableau-the golden, virginal Quistis being tended to by the very personification of a catty, sensual woman. Nervous and uneasy, Seifer watched.

A single spell from Dona nullified the poison. A second returned some of the color to Quistis's cheeks and made her eyelids flutter open but didn't completely heal the sting in her back.

"What in the...?" Quistis murmured. She blinked a few times before making out her surroundings. "Dona?"

"Nice to see you again, too, Trepe," Dona said. With a haughty quirk at the side of her mouth, she looked up at Seifer. "You need to make sure she gets a few days rest and packs the wound with phoenix down. Can you handle that? Or do I need to stick with you to supervise?"

"Phoenix down?" Quistis repeated weakly.

"I can handle it," Seifer snapped.

"I'm sure. Lucky for you, we're heading toward the travel agency anyway." She smiled and wiped her hands on the sides of her dress. When she stepped back, Seifer bent down to help the confused and magic-addled Quistis to her feet. She wobbled drunkenly.

"You're not heading to Mount Gagazet?"

"We've decided to...pursue other interests," Dona replied. "Isn't that right, Barthello?"

The dumb ape nodded.

"Why?" Seifer asked. "What would make you give up summoning?"

"An extended stay in an Al Bhed prison on Bikanel, for one," she replied sourly. "Quistis is one of the only summoners who escaped their net. At least, until they attempted to capture Yuna. Her guardians broke us out and then dropped us off here-" she waved a hand around "-in this wasteland."

By means of implicitly thanking her for saving Quistis's life, Seifer let Dona and Barthello ride double on their spare chocobo all the way back to the travel agency. When they arrived, the Al Bhed running the place came out to meet them. Even though he wore a cowl and goggles, Seifer could make out the look of surprise on his face at seeing them return.

"I don't understand. Why are we back here?" Quistis asked. "Why is Dona here?"

"Long story," Seifer replied. She wouldn't remember much of it if he told it to her now anyway.

With the last of their money, he rented their rooms back and filled his bag with restorative potions, elixirs, antidotes, and phoenix down. The latter he took and gave to Fujin, who packed and wrapped Quistis's wound in privacy. When she finally let Seifer back into the room, the summoner had been tucked into bed and had drifted back off to sleep, looking healthy but exhausted.

"UPSET?" Fujin asked when he frowned and scrubbed his blood caked hand against his coat.

"No. I'm pissed. We went out there without any healing supplies. I mean...for fuck sake. How did we expect to fight Sin equipped like that?"

Fujin shrugged. "DIDN'T."

He eyed her. "What do you mean?"

Rather than answer sensibly like he knew she was capable, Fujin merely shook her head and walked out, obviously of the opinion that he should figure it out for himself. But he had no idea what she'd been trying to get at. Fujin didn't expect to fight Sin? What did she think this whole trip had been about? What else did she think might happen in the end? That he might not follow through?

Maybe she didn't understand him as well as he'd always thought.

With one more long look at Quistis, he turned and followed her out.

0 0 0

The sick haze that had settled over Quistis with the poison lifted after a solid, restorative day's sleep. She woke up in the late afternoon and looked up at the ceiling. Recognizing it as the travel agency, she wondered for a moment if she'd merely dreamt leaving on choco-back until she tried to sit up and the bandages wrapped tightly around her chest pinched.

Some hazy memories of seeing Dona and of returning to the agency filtered back slowly after that.

She was feeling well enough that night to sit up in bed and eat what Raijin brought her. He also explained, haltingly, what had happened after she'd left camp to check on the chocobos. It was a freak accident. Something that shouldn't have happened to a summoner. And it embarrassed her to realize that she'd been caught off guard and nearly killed by a simple, run-of-the-mill fiend. Although not as much as it appeared to embarrass her guardians. Seifer especially.

"My only regret is that it had to be Dona to heal me," she admitted to him while finishing the last of her soup. "Anyone else..."

"I know what you mean," he replied darkly.

She smiled at him, not liking his tone. "Oh well though. Right?"

"She's given up on going to fight Sin," he told her. "So...we're still ahead of the pack, as far as I can figure."

"That's good." She didn't mention that it would take days for the phoenix down to properly heal her back. And in that time, Yuna or Isaaru might easily overtake them. He'd turned moody since the accident and she felt it best not to bring the possibility up.

"I'm sorry I let you down," he said softly. "It won't happen again."

"It's okay. _Really_."

Seifer nodded. "I vowed to get you to Zanarkand. And I will. I promise."

All of the warmth she'd seen in him the past few days, in Bevelle and on their first night in the Calm Lands, had gone. Buried once again behind the stubborn layers of dreams and duty and martial verve. Her injury had been a massive blow to him. And it had realigned his sensibilities in a way that she found herself surprised to not appreciate. He was more focused than ever on the task at hand. Professional, even.

And that deeply disappointed her.

Because, she realized, she'd lost him.


	11. Mount Gagazet

Chapter 11: Mount Gagazet

For a while, Seifer committed himself to remaining by Quistis's side during her convalescence. He brought her hot meals and played Triple Triad with her as she ate. He lingered outside her door while Fujin replaced her bandages. And he shadowed her steps when she got out of bed one afternoon to pad barefoot out into the lobby.

A plush chair warmed by a shaft of sunlight caught her eye.

She spent the rest of the day there.

The next morning, he woke to find her already in the lobby, ensconced in her chair with an Al Bhed book full of glossy pictures lying open in her lap and a hot cup of tea perched in her left hand. It smelled like cinnamon and cream.

She smiled at him.

"Hey," she said, waving him over. "Look at this."

She set down her tea long enough to turn the book toward him. A drawing of a giant catuar, four times the size of the human figure depicted next to it for scale, crossed the spine to take up both pages.

"Do you suppose these really exist on Bikanel?" she asked with enough curiosity and naiveté that he couldn't help but recall her sheltered upbringing in Kilika.

"Doubt it. Looks made-up to me," he said. "I mean...damn thing has a mustache."

She shrugged. "That would hardly be the strangest thing either one of us has seen on a fiend."

_True._

And speaking of fiends…

"I'm going to head out for a while to train. Gotta keep my skills sharp," he told her.

Staying in one place so long made him antsy. With every day that passed, he looked toward the mountains and tallied the ground they were losing against their competitors. Dona had already caught up. Yuna couldn't be far behind.

At the same time, knowing that he was expending all of his energy toward nursing Quistis back to health just so that she might survive long enough to die in Zanarkand made him anxious as well. Anxious and, much as he hated to admit it, heartsick.

He preferred to avoid thinking about the situation entirely.

To that end, he wore his heavy sword on his side, ready to send as many fiends as he could find to the Farplane.

"Want to come with me? Might be good for you to dust off your summoning skills a bit."

She glanced sharply at him. "They don't require dusting off."

No surprise that his suggestion irked her. She'd been unhappy with him ever since she woke up back at the travel agency. He wasn't sure why, but he suspected that it was because of the way he'd let her down. Thinking of it still made his stomach roll with shame.

With a curt shrug to mask his thoughts, he strode past her and out into the pale morning sunlight.

Around the back of the travel agency, he found Barthello outfitting two chocobos while Dona waited with her arms crossed.

Swearing, he moved to turn back before either of them spotted him— _this just wasn't his morning_ —but Dona had already heard him approaching.

"Well, if it isn't the guardian lapdog," she said as she turned toward him with both hands perched on the sassy flare of her hips. "Where's your master?"

"You mean Quistis?"

"I didn't think you ever left her unattended," Dona replied. "Unless, of course, you're thinking of jumping ship…?"

"Give up? Not a chance. I'm heading out to do some training."

"Ah…training. I see. How admirable of you." She rolled her eyes. "Barthello and I are heading to Bevelle today. I hear that Squall is there. Any message you'd like me to deliver to him? Perhaps Quistis has some last words for her first choice?"

Seifer didn't bother to reply.

"I admit," Dona continued, "I was surprised to learn that he stayed behind. I always thought he'd come around eventually. You know, stop brooding and be the hero." She shrugged, then adjusted her dress around her cleavage. "Guess not. Anyway…best of luck to you in Zanarkand." This time she sounded sincere. Inasmuch as she was capable, anyway.

Watching Dona and Barthello turn tail and run for home gave Seifer a brief, self-righteous high. The summoner's mandate (and, by extension, a guardian's) had always struck him as something far too heavy to merely shrug off and walk away from. According to his philosophy, the more painful and burdensome the task, the greater the honor and more binding the oath in agreeing to bear it.

Real heroes didn't get happy endings.

They didn't expect them.

He'd always hoped for a blaze of glory in which to depart the world. A dream of nobility and sacrifice deeply bound in the imagery of the stories his mother had read to him as a child.

Which was, in part, why his growing reluctance to lose Quistis to this quest bothered him so much. He saw it as a sign of weakness. As his constitution wavering at the finish line.

But those famous storybook heroes he admired had suffered their moments of doubt, too, he reminded himself. They'd all found themselves at a place where they wanted to turn back, knowing the path ahead meant death and terror and sadness. But they had kept going because they had to. Because turning back meant something even worse—shame, failure, and defeat.

He had to soldier on.

The dew-damp grass whispered under his boots as he set off, desperate for something to kill. He didn't have to search long. The Calm Lands had been unoccupied by anyone but summoners and fiends for centuries. He cut swaths through anacondaurs, coeurls, ogres, and skolls. Clouds of pyreflies trailed after the edge of his sword like his own raging spirit.

When he returned to the travel agency that afternoon, filthy, bruised, and utterly spent, he stopped to check in on Quistis before heading to his own room to clean up. She sat at a table, taking notes on a pulpy sheet of off-white paper while referencing the book lying open in front of her. Deciphering the Al Bhed language, he realized. And making good progress, too.

He knew enough Al Bhed to help steer her in the right direction. Could probably even translate the entire passage once he got in the groove. But he didn't step forward through the doorway, knowing that she'd neither welcome nor require his assistance.

"Feeling any better?" she asked without looking up.

"Not really," he admitted. "You?"

"Getting there."

She set down her pen and pushed back from the table. One delicate sweep of her hand pushed a strand of blonde hair back from her eyes. "I know you're eager to move on," she said, finally meeting his gaze. "I know that this delay has been frustrating for you."

He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, hoping she couldn't see through to the deeper source of his discontent.

 _I don't mind waiting_ , he wanted to stay.

But, of course, he did mind. And her reassurances only drew his emotions into an even denser knot, pulling hard until the twisted sinews of doubt and duty made his chest feel too tight to take in a full breath.

"I'm healing quickly now," she continued. "In another day I should be well on my way back to full strength and we can get back to our pilgrimage."

"Good." He forced the word out past a lump in his throat.

This doubt wouldn't control him, he decided. He wouldn't let it destroy his dream. He tried to focus instead on the weight of Hyperion in his hand and the sharp, lemon-zest scent of pyreflies on his clothes.

"Let me know when you're ready to go," he said.

Then, gathering up everything he had, he turned his back on her and walked away.

0 0 0

Lady Yuna and her entourage arrived at the travel agency the next day. The group carried with them none of the joy and fanfare that had surrounded the wedding in Bevelle mere days before and Seymour was not with them. Quistis wondered what had happened. Had one of them called off the nuptials?

Her heart ached with sympathy for the other summoner. They had both left something of themselves behind in Bevelle, it seemed.

Seifer came up behind Quistis then, his deliberate, heavy steps distinct from either Raijin's or Fujin's. He leaned over her shoulder to peer out the window at the new arrivals and swore under his breath.

"Guess there wasn't much of a honeymoon."

Where he'd been restless before, Seifer became positively unbearable after Yuna's arrival. He didn't say anything outright. Didn't bully Quistis to tie on her summoner's bow and get back on the road. Instead, he retreated into an even darker, more pervasive moodiness. He snapped at Fujin and Raijin. Became quickly and violently frustrated by everyday inconveniences. And he paced. Compulsively. Endlessly. Until Quistis felt tempted to take up her whip again just to throttle him.

Yuna and her guardians left early the next morning.

Despite her better judgment, Quistis reconciled their account with the Al Bhed at the front desk and announced that they would be leaving as well.

"RUSHED," Fujin said, shaking her head, as they packed up their belongings.

"We've still got a long way to go before Zanarkand," Quistis pointed out. "I can finish my recovery on the way."

Again, they rented chocobos. And again they set off across the empty grassland of the Calm Lands. Seifer rode close to Quistis, his reins drawn tight and his knees locked to his mount's sides—brimming with military precision and control despite their easy, walking pace.

When they stopped for the first night and set up camp, there was no discussion as they lay in the dark together. Only Raijin attempted to strike up a conversation before Fujin elbowed him into silence. The day of travel had exhausted Quistis enough that she didn't mind. She stretched out on the hard ground and slept, undisturbed by dreams or fiends or sounds in the night.

Come morning, however, she noticed the void left by Seifer's emotional retreat. And she missed him. He didn't even make an effort toward being obnoxious. He'd become single-minded. All guardian with everything soft and flawed and human hidden away underneath a hard outer shell of indifference and determination.

"I saw their camp fire last night," he said over breakfast, itself a rushed affair that Quistis barely had time to bolt down before he had her chocobo saddled and ready.

"Whose?" she asked through a mouth full of fire toasted bread.

"Yuna's. They're not that far ahead of us. A few hours maybe. I don't think it will be too difficult to catch up before they reach Zanarkand."

The edge of optimism in his voice bothered her.

Although they made good progress that day, they didn't catch up to or pass Yuna's group. They did, however, find plenty of evidence of the young summoner's passing. When they arrived at the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, an unusual number of people were gathered outside the cave's dark mouth. Their busy chatter echoed off the steep walls of the ravine.

"Amazing," a middle-aged woman was saying.

"She saved them all," another replied, nodding.

"Of course I wasn't scared!" a young man said while puffing up his chest. "Anyway, I knew I'd be safe with Lady Yuna."

Seifer rolled his eyes. "You'd think Yevon himself stopped by here the way these people talk," he grumbled to Quistis before grabbing a bystander by the sleeve and demanding to know what all the fuss was about.

It turned out that some people had gotten lost in the cavern. But Yuna had managed to guide every wayward traveler to safety before plunging back into the murky depths to confront the cavern's fickle fayth. She hadn't taken long to accomplish all of this. Her group, Quistis gathered, had just left moments before for the Ronso city located halfway up the mountain pass.

"At least this slowed them down a bit, ya know?" Raijin said.

"I guess," Seifer grumbled.

Under any other circumstances, Quistis thought he'd be pleased to hear of Yuna's group meeting with some kind of delay. But the accolades Yuna had generated for herself here clearly bothered him.

The Cavern of the Stolen Fayth took more time than Quistis thought it would to navigate. Happily, the fayth surprised her as well in preferring to battle those he served rather than listen passively to their prayers. Odin made short work of the aeon, Yojimbo, who didn't require any more convincing than Zantetsuken's fatal whisper to join their quest.

Invigorated by the battle, Quistis hardly noticed the temperature dropping as they set to climbing the steep trail into the mountains. As evening began to fall, so too did a fluttery pale dusting of snow. Kilika was far too tropical for such weather, even on the highest peak of the island's interior. So she had never seen snowflakes before, let alone felt them melting on her warm cheeks and clinging to her hair. The pervasive silence of the storm astounded her.

"How much longer til we get to the Ronoso city?" Raijin asked. "We don't want to camp out in this kinda weather, ya know?"

"FREEZING!" Fujin agreed.

"Shouldn't be too far," Quistis assured them.

With the last rays of the sun glinting feebly off the now thick sheets of falling snow, they came upon the first evidence of Ronso civilization – a series of poles struck into the rock with bright feathers tied to the top. The Ronso used these, Quistis had read, to find and remain on the path during the long winter when the pass clogged with snow.

Darkness was closing in as they reached the settlement, which appeared eerily bright in the night. The Ronso all had fires lit outside of their homes and stood gathered around them, chatting, enjoying the evening, unperturbed by the cold under their coats of blue fur.

Quistis's arrival drew everyone's attention.

Two of the Ronso walked over to meet her.

Raijin broke away from the group to jog up to the pair and take their hands. One of them, a lanky, lean Ronso with dark braids hanging down his back, wore twin blades at his side-an unconventional choice. The other stood a full head taller than his companion and was missing one eye, the socket glued shut by a knotty scar.

"Man…it's great to see you guys, ya know?" Raijin was saying. "Hey, Quistis…these are the friends I was telling you about. My Blitz buddies, ya know? Kiros and Ward."

She smiled and bowed. "Nice to meet you," she said.

"And…uh…you guys probably remember Seifer and Fu," Raijin said, sounding almost bashful. Quistis supposed that Seifer hadn't made a much better impression on these two than he had on Squall during his tenure in Luca's pool. The way the two regarded him—stern faced but polite—confirmed her suspicion.

"Kiros and Ward would be honored if you stayed with us tonight, Lady Quistis," Kiros said, his voice surprisingly smooth and gentle.

"That would be—" Quistis began, but Seifer interrupted before she could finish.

"That won't be necessary."

She sent him a scolding glance.

"The mountain is unforgiving. Especially at night," Kiros advised diplomatically.

"COLD," Fujin added.

"Yeah, well…we're kind of in a hurry. So we'll just stock up on some supplies, buy a coat or two, and be on our way." Seifer craned his neck, as if searching for their general store.

Kiros and Ward exchanged glances, their expressions inscrutable.

Not wanting to air yet another public argument with her guardian, Quistis smiled at the two Ronso, begging for their patience, then latched onto Seifer's coat sleeve and pivoted him around so that he had his back turned to the settlement and his wide shoulders stood between her and any prying eyes.

"We are not scaling Mount Gagazet in the dark in a snowstorm," she told him, her voice low.

He sighed, his breath crystallizing in front of his face.

"So, what? You want to just snuggle up here for the night? Lady Yuna is probably halfway to-"

Quistis interrupted him: "I don't give a damn about Lady Yuna. And I don't want to hear you mention her again. Understood?"

The irritation on his face vanished as his mouth twitched upward into a cocky, lopsided smirk. "Why? Don't like me thinking about other women?" he teased.

"Other _summoners_ ," she corrected.

"Come on. You can't possibly want to stay here overnight. Not when we're this close." He gestured vaguely above them at the dark form of the mountain against the night sky. "If we keep going, we could be in Zanarkand by this time tomorrow."

"Seifer, this discussion is over. We're staying." She stepped around him, breaking eye contact to let him know that she meant it, then bowed to Kiros and Ward. "We accept your offer," she told them. "Thank you for your hospitality."

The Ronso village wasn't very large, the entire settlement built in a protected valley that the winds coming down the mountain roared over rather than through. Kiros and Ward directed them past the gathered Ronso out enjoying the night and to a small wood and rock structure that they shared as a home. Snow dusted and rough hewn on the outside, it proved a cozy abode on the inside, warmed by plenty of thick furs and a glowing central hearth.

Quistis found it quite charming. But she noticed Seifer glancing over the home with a critical eye.

She hoped to Yevon that he'd keep his mouth shut and not insult their hosts.

Through some miracle, he stayed quiet—only his jaw twitched as he held back judgment and complaint.

"You are on your way to battle Sin?" Kiros asked, directing the question at Raijin.

"Yeah. We're gonna defeat him for good this time though, ya know? It's Seifer's destiny."

Kiros glanced at Seifer with what Quistis thought might have been amusement. "No more blitzball?"

"We retired," Raijin said. "But I figure I can coach next year. Once the pilgrimage is done, ya know?"

Ward silently made up beds on the floor out of blankets and furs for them while Kiros and Raijin talked. Quistis got the impression that Ward was incapable of speaking, perhaps due to the same injury that had disfigured his face.

"You are from Luca, too?" Kiros asked her.

"No. I'm from Kilika."

"Kilika." A smile peeled Kiros's lips back over his sharp, feline teeth. "You know Laguna?"

"Laguna Loire?" she asked, surprised.

He nodded.

"Yes! Do you?"

"Laguna, Kiros, and Ward traveled together many years ago," Kiros explained. "Laguna was warrior monk of Yevon then."

Boggled, Quistis couldn't immediately respond to this revelation. In all the years she'd known him, Laguna had never once mentioned leaving Kilika, let alone once serving Yevon and traveling the world with two Ronso companions. He didn't strike her as the type. Up for adventure, sure. But a warrior monk? He didn't have the discipline or the sort of disposition that meshed well with guns and flame throwers and uniforms.

"Laguna was not a very good one," Kiros added, noting her silence. His yellow eyes glanced quickly in Ward's direction.

Had his scars been earned while in Laguna's company?

It didn't seem polite to ask.

Instead she settled on top of a soft coerl-skin rug and shared stories of what Laguna had been up to since they'd parted ways. She told them about Raine, Ellone, and Squall. About Sin's attack. And about his brief stint as mayor. In return, Kiros told her about their time in Bevelle, regaling her with raucous stories of Laguna's poor map reading skills and his unrequited lover affair with a certain pianist who played every night at a club they frequented.

The clear warmth with which Kiros remembered Laguna filled Quistis to the brim with affection and longing for her family.

And those soft feelings, quite against her will, made her gaze turn more often than not toward Seifer. He sat quiet in the firelight, his expression so impenetrable that she hardly recognized the man she'd come to know underneath. She thought of the first moment she'd seen him deep in Kilika's temple. She thought of his arms locked around her in Djose as sinspawn washed up on shore And, more than anything, she thought of the unguarded moment under the firework filled sky in Bevelle when he'd leaned down and kissed her.

Selfishly, she craved more from him.

Not just more physical contact, but more emotion. More feeling. More vitality.

Once they settled in for the night, Quistis and her guardians taking up pallets of fur around the fire, she made sure to lay down beside him. Then she closed her eyes tight, breathed deep, and tried to soak up all that she could: the sound of popping wood, the soft fur against the bare soles of her feet, the regular breathing of her companions, and the utter silence outside as snow blanketed the Ronso village.

In the morning, they'd pass over the mountains into Zanarkand.

But first, one last night of peace.

0 0 0

Seifer got up early the next morning. He couldn't quite tell whether the sun had come up yet past the impenetrable cover of show-laden clouds that continued to roll over the mountain. Frost had collected on the inside of the window panes overnight. He chipped at some with his thumb, irritated. The little Ronso cabin felt downright cozy in comparison to the blizzard raging outside. It made him want to climb back under the heavy furs and not come out for the rest of the day.

_Damn it._

He didn't want to _want_ to stay here.

Fujin stepped up to the window beside him and peeked out. Her small shoulders moved up and down as she sighed.

"You guys ready to go yet?" he asked her.

"NO."

"What's the hold up? I gotta get out of this place. I swear, if we don't leave soon, I'm gonna..."

Fujin turned her penetrating gaze on him. "WHAT?"

_What, indeed?_

He sighed. "Nevermind."

He'd lain awake for a long time the night before, bothered by how close Quistis had bedded down next to him. Her foot had brushed his once or twice when she'd shifted around. And though he remained still with his back to her, he knew that if he'd rolled over, he would have been nose to nose with her. More than close enough to cross off a few items on her bucket list.

Quistis had left a few minutes ago with Ward to visit the Ronso across the way who apparently spent his days on the mountain cooped up in his house, hand painting the designs on Triple Triad cards. From where he stood, he could see the front door she'd vanished through and the shadows playing across the lit windows as the hearth inside crackled.

He imagined her sitting on a chair two times to big for her, sipping tea, charming the fur off the poor sucker as she surveyed his latest work, examining each new card with precise, delicate fingers. Picking out one to keep.

Impatient for her return, he shifted closer to the window until his breath began to fog up the glass.

"STUPID," Fujin said.

"I know," Seifer replied. "What's she going to do with Triple Triad cards in Zanarkand?"

"NO. YOU."

"What do you mean, me?" He turned on her.

She crossed her arms, and when she spoke, her voice low, he knew that they were now having a very serious conversation. She'd only spoken to him this way once in all the time he'd known her, and that had been years ago when his mother died.

"SEIFER...why are you doing this?" she asked.

"What?"

"Continuing with this pilgrimage."

"You even have to ask? It's my dream, Fu. Always has been."

"Things change. Raijin and I aren't sure this is the right thing to do anymore."

He stared at her, dumbfounded. "Are you trying to tell me that you're quitting?"

She put a firm hand on his arm. "We're a posse. Always will be. And because we're a posse, we want to help you. Whatever it takes to fulfill your dreams, we're willing to do. But you've lost yourself. This isn't what you really want anymore. This isn't what you dream about."

"Oh yeah? So, what do I dream about then?"

Fujin pointed out the window. "Her. You're in love with her."

Seifer had a hard time keeping his voice down when he replied. "What?! I'm not in love with her!"

"This isn't what she wants anymore either," Fujin continued, ignoring his protest. "It hasn't been for a while. Can't you tell? She has feelings for you, too."

Seifer shook his head. "No. But…even if she did, even we both did, so what? Why does that make any difference? Do you think none of the other guardians throughout history cared about their summoners? It wouldn't be a sacrifice if they didn't. It wouldn't mean anything."

"There are other summoners. Yuna. Isaaru."

"But none of them have _me_!" he yelled, not bothering to control the volume of his voice now. "This is my destiny, damn it. I thought you understood that."

"You're not the Seifer we knew anymore," Fujin said, her tone scolding and harsh. "We want the old you back. And that means we can't help you with this pilgrimage anymore."

He took a step away from her.

"Are you still going to keep going without us?" she asked.

He nodded, one hand resting on top of his sword. "It's been fun."

Fujin turned away from him.

"STUPID."

Furious now, Seifer pulled his coat on. His boots thumped against the floor as he stormed out and the blizzard swept snow in over the threshold before he slammed the door behind him.

They'd abandoned him. He couldn't believe it.

And over what? Some feelings they thought he had for the summoner? What did they want him to do? Marry her and have a little pack of kids that they could watch die when Sin attacked their village? No thanks. This was better. Fighting Sin. Dying side by side. Living forever as heroes.

Quistis emerged from the house across the way then. A dusting of snow covered her golden blonde hair before she managed to flip her hood up. Ward towered next to her so that even in her bulky coat she appeared terribly small and fragile. A misleading impression, he knew. With her whip she could probably take down Ward in a second flat. Less if she bothered to use one of her aeons. No one gave either of them enough credit. They could do this. They _would_ do this. Just the two of them.

"We're leaving," he told her.

"Right now?"

"Yeah. Got to."

Her mouth turned down with her confusion. "Okay. Let me just say goodbye to Kiros."

"No time." He grabbed her hand and started pulling her along, away from the house and from the silent, disapproving figure of Ward. "Come on."

"What about Fujin and Raijin?"

"Don't worry about them."

"They've already gone ahead?"

He didn't respond. Better, he thought, to let her fill in that blank on her own. Let her assume whatever made her happy. Anything to get her out of the city, up onto the mountain pass, and into Zanarkand before this whole pilgrimage came crashing down around him.

They trudged through calf deep snow, Seifer plowing a path and Quistis hopping along in his footprints as if they were stepping stones. "I got two custom cards painted. Want to see them?"

"No."

"Are you sure? I think you'll like them. He does portraits, too. So I convinced him to make a card for each of us. You look a little cranky on yours, but..."

He spun around and jerked her toward him. "Listen, Quistis. This is serious. We're doing something big here. So drop the little girl from Kilika act and become the High Summoner you've trained to be. Okay?"

He expression flashed cold as ice and the soft curve of her smile flattened. "It's easier for you that way, isn't it?" she said and tried to pull her hand out of his.

His fingers locked vice-like around hers. "There's nothing easy about it," he growled. "Come on."

Although she continued walking with him, he could feel the hesitation in her steps and had to tug her along whenever her pace began to flag. He was losing her. How far would they get, he wondered, before he'd have to drag her? Could he fight off mountain fiends with his sword in one arm and Quistis in the other?

He'd have to.

The wind blew snow right into their faces as they headed out of the Ronso village and up the narrow mountain pass. A female Ronso stood guarding a colorful plate in the ground, a feathered halberd clutched in her right paw. The creature eyed them as they passed. Quistis looked like she wanted to stop and talk. Or bow. Or perhaps pray for a few hours. So he pulled her along forcefully enough to make her stumble.

"What's your problem?" she demanded once they were out of earshot. It didn't take long with the way the wind roared across the mountain top.

"You're my problem," he snapped.

Fujin and Raijin had left because of her. He'd let himself become soft and unfocused because of her. This whole damn quested teetered on the edge because of her.

"You're mad at me?"

Rage boiled in his gut. Why this constant dithering?

"Yeah. I'm mad at you. Mad because you're so damn-" He glanced over his shoulder and saw her: cheeks flushed pink by the wind, mouth turned down, tendrils of hair whispering at her temples and pressing in sinuous cords against her neck. Luminous. Warm and beautiful. Even here. "Because you're so damn…mediocre," he managed to finish, his stomach turning over.

All of the blood flushed out of Quistis's face.

She dug her heels in and pulled her hand free of his. "How long have you felt this way?"

"Way too damn long."

The shattering of her heart showed clear on her face. It pained him physically to see it.

"Where are Raijin and Fujin?" she asked, a thick edge of barely restrained emotion to her voice.

"They quit."

"Why?"

"Because they're cowards."

"No they're not. What happened?"

He sneered, hating himself. Hating her. "They think you have feelings for me and that you don't really want to go on with the pilgrimage anymore."

The way she froze at that, unable to reply, struck him. Was Fujin right?

"And yet you still want to go with me to Zanarkand?" she finally asked.

"Yes."

"Even though I'm such a mediocre summoner?"

He sighed and tried to recapture her hand. Time to try a different approach. "We can do this. Just you and me. Fujin and Raijin? Good riddance. We don't need 'em."

"Except for Lord Zaon and Lady Yunalesca, a two man team has never managed to defeat Sin."

"Well, perfect. I'd say we fit that bill."

She evaded his continued advances. "Seifer, Lady Yuna is ahead of us. And she has six guardians."

"Yeah. So?"

"So, there's a good reason why. The path this far has been difficult. But the path ahead? That's a challenge only a few have risen to in the past thousand years. There's no way you'd come out of there alive. We've lost half our team. Even if I weren't mediocre, going into Zanarkand just the two of us would be insane."

"It's not insane. It's glorious. We could walk in there with a whole army of guardians like Lady Yuna, but we're doin' it right. We can't stop here."

"Yes, we can."

"Didn't the temple teach you to keep going no matter what? To pursue your pilgrimage until the end?"

"No. They taught me to battle Sin wherever I find it. To serve Spira however I can. Neither of those commandments are served by allowing you to die needlessly in Zanarkand."

"Am I supposed to believe that you're worried about me? That you love me? I'm just as willing to die as you are, Summoner."

Again, he moved to grab her, but she took a fleet-footed step back.

"Don't touch me," she warned, the blue-green halo of magic buzzing about her.

Many of the spells Quistis had at her disposal could kill him in an instant. He'd seen her dissolve fiends five times his size with a flick of her wrist. But he knew she wouldn't use any of that dread magic against him. She wouldn't hurt him. She couldn't. Not if she really cared. Either way, he figured, he'd die today. At least this way he'd have one last change at his dream.

So he lunged for her.

With a blinding flash of lighting, Odin appeared at her side. The crack of thunder alone blew Seifer back a step.

"Stop!" Quistis commanded. The aeon's six-legged horse didn't advance. Instead, it pawed at the frozen ground beside her. The air itself seemed to part around the edge of Odin's unsheathed blade.

For a second, Seifer thought: _I can take him_. He'd watched Odin fight often enough. He knew how the attack would come. If he could counter it or strike first…slice the aeon in two rather then the othe way around…

"Why is this so important to you?" Quistis asked, her voice suddenly quiet and gentle.

"Because it's my destiny."

"What if it's not? Maybe we're not the ones meant to defeat Sin. Maybe Yuna is."

"But…I _know_ I'm supposed to be a hero. Like Lord Zaon, fighting and dying for love and honor."

"That's a fairytale. A story book. The real Zaon? He didn't mean to die. He meant to save Yunalesca. Because he loved her. Because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It's a tragedy that they died. Not something to celebrate. Certainly not something to emulate."

Odin shifted beside her, his eyes glowing like hot coals inside his helmet. There would be no more entreaties now, Seifer knew. No more pilgrimage. No more dream.

Hands trembling, Quistis pushed back her coat and untied the black, satin bow at her waist. Then she held it out to him, the tail ends fluttering in the wind. When she let it go, it flew several feet before landing in a snow bank, slashing a black scar across the pristine white.

"We're done," she said. "Come back with me."

"No."

"Please."

"I can't. You know I can't."

She nodded and bowed deep, her hands cupped in front of her in prayer.

"Quistis!" he called out as she turned to leave, a futile edge of warning to his voice. "Quistis! Get back here!"

Odin followed her, his massive back and the bulk of his horse blocking the summoner from view. If she turned to look back at him as he called, he couldn't tell. But she didn't slow. And after only a few breaths, the storm closed in between them and she vanished.

For a long time, Seifer stood there, the world coming apart around him.

Who would he become now? What story was he meant to play out, if not this one?

Shattered and alone, he sank down in the snow and waited for answers.


	12. Balamb

Chapter 12: Balamb

For a long time, Odin followed Quistis down Mount Gagazet, his horse's breath puffing over her shoulder in great, steamy clouds. She hoped that his continued presence meant that Seifer had decided to follow her. When the aeon finally retreated back into the ether, she dared a glance back but found herself alone, the huge flakes of falling snow already filling in her footsteps.

Guilt assailed her. She'd stranded him the same way Squall had stranded her on the temple steps in Kilika.

She hesitated.

If she went back now, he'd want to continue the pilgrimage. He would drag them both to Zanarkand where they would die before ever reaching Sin. Their lives tossed away for nothing. For a dream.

If she continued on to the Ronso village, she'd never see him again. He'd stay behind and freeze to death out of sheer pig-headedness. Or he'd eventually find his way back to civilization but want nothing to do with her, the image of Quistis Trepe in his mind forever associated with failure, disappointment, and abandonment. Either way, they had no future together. Not as friends. Definitely not as anything more.

Better alive than dead, she thought, a hand over her heart, and continued down the pass. Maybe someday he'd come to forgive her.

When she returned to the Ronso village, she went straight to Kiros and Ward's house but did not find either Raijin of Fujin there. Kiros told her that they had left some time ago but hadn't said where they intended to go. Perhaps they hadn't quit acting as Seifer's posse after all. She hadn't noticed them on her way back, but the weather had truly closed in now, socking the mountain in, and she could have passed them by mere meters without noticing.

"You should stay in the village until the storm passes," Kiros advised. "They may return soon."

"No. I think I'd rather return to the Calm Lands as soon as possible," she replied. It would take her weeks of travel to return home and suddenly she very dearly wanted to see Edea, Cid, Laguna, Ellone, and the shallow, blue-green waters of Kilika again. Besides, she didn't think Seifer would want to see her when he made it back.

Kiros bowed. "We would be honored to accompany you, Lady Summoner."

She smiled. "It is just Quistis now."

They set out immediately, hoping to drop out of the storm before it intensified any further.

It felt strange to pass back over ground that hours before she had seen for what she'd thought would be the very last time. Over the course of her journey, she ahd said so many goodbyes that the future, even Spira itself, now felt awkwardly open and vast. What would she do with the rest of her life?

She hadn't needed to think of such things in more than a decade.

Since she had left behind her bow, officially and symbolically giving up her position as a summoner, she no longer felt permitted to call upon her aeons. Odin, however, continued to appear whenever they encountered fiends along the trail. Kiros and Ward handled most without her assistance. The rest Odin dispatched with his blade.

"You don't have to help me anymore," she told him quietly in the aftermath of a battle, pyreflies still sparking around them.

"My service is not _granted_ to summoners," he told her before vanishing. "It is _earned_ by warriors."

She smiled to herself at the compliment.

They made good time. Snow turned to a light, spitting rain as they crossed the wooden bridge that spanned the steep chasm between Gagazet's foothills and the open expanse of the Calm Lands. Not long after that, the clouds above parted, revealing an almost full moon. Quistis unbuttoned her heavy fur coat and let the breeze stir her clothing. The night rose gooseflesh on her skin but felt balmy in comparison to the mountain frost.

Ward ranged far and wide to gather tinder in order to build a roaring fire when they stopped to make camp.

"Would the two of you like to go with me all the way to Kilika?" she asked once they'd eaten and settled in for the night. "I'm sure Laguna would be happy to see you."

Kiros smiled, the firelight making the expression even more fierce than usual. "Kiros and Ward look forward to seeing him again."

Glad to have their company, Quistis returned the Ronso's smile.

Across the fire, Ward made a noise and pointed up at the sky.

Following his gaze, Quistis squinted. The dazzling light from the fire made it difficult to see anything beyond their camp, but after a second she made out what had drawn the Ronso's keen eye. A blinking light, changing from red to white and back again, moved between the stars. It traveled slowly at first. Then faster, the light growing until it split into three.

"What is it?" Quistis asked.

"A ship," Kiros replied.

_Al Bhed?_

They watched as it drew closer, brighter, and more massive. Finally they could hear its engines, all machina whir and chemical roar. It flew right over them, close enough to the ground that all three of them ducked instinctively. Then it turned, banking on one massive wing, and circled back around before lowering onto the grass. Quistis's coat plastered against her legs in the buffeting gale from the engines as they wound down.

A door opened in the ship's massive, red dragon belly and a group of three people walked out.

"Quistis?" one of them said. "That you?"

Immediately, she recognized the tiny figure.

"Selphie?"

"Booyaka! It _is_ you!" Selphie turned around, then cupped one hand around her mouth to yell back up into the ship: "Hey! It's her! Get out here!"

Quistis heard a click as Zell and Irvine disarmed their machina weapons. Then two more people came down the ramp out of the ship.

Rinoa ran into the grass, her duster flying out behind her. Not far behind, but walking at a comfortable pace, Squall descended as well. He crossed his arms, took in the campfire and the group around it, and asked, "Where's Seifer?"

Tears welled up in Quistis's eyes: both for Seifer whom she'd left behind and for Squall who hadn't given up on her after all. She hoped that he couldn't see them. It took some time to explain what had happened and to introduce him to Kiros and Ward, his father's long-lost friends. Rinoa put her hand over her heart and shook her head at the end.

"We were going to go all the way to Zanarkand, you know. To help fight Sin. Anything that we could do to maybe save you. I guess I'm glad we don't have to now. But…poor Seifer."

"I'm sure Raijin and Fujin went to get him. They're loyal to the extreme," Squall replied, his tone so even and reasonable that Quistis felt silly for doubting Seifer's dedicated posse even for a moment.

"Still, we could look," Rinoa said. She turned to Irvine. "You can fly low over Mount Gagazet. Right?"

"Sure. If the storm lets up."

Quistis felt a moment's misgiving: she doubted Seifer wanted rescued, and she felt uneasy climbing on board the Al Bhed ship. But she followed Squall up the ramp anyway. She could always explain away the rescue as Rinoa's idea, she figured.

The ship's shiny red hull changed to bare metal on the inside. It had the look of something half-finished, or recently salvaged, with catwalks rather than floors and exposed bundles of wire running through walls missing their paneling.

"Welcome aboard the Ragnarok. She still needs some work," Zell admitted as he opened a door up to the bridge. "She's only been off the ocean floor for two years. Took us half that long just to kill all the propogators nesting in the holds. But we think she goes all the way back to the machina war between Zanarkand and Bevelle. Pretty cool. Huh?"

Inexplicably, Selphie turned out to be their pilot. Quistis belted herself in tight and held onto the seat's armrests as they took off, expecting the ship to either launch directly up into the stratosphere or explode. It did neither, taking off gently and angling off into the dark. Although she sensed that the ship was moving very fast, Quistis couldn't feel the pull of inertia. She relaxed enough to take a long look at Squall who sat next to her, his jaw firm, his eyes staring forward.

"You came for me," she said quietly.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah."

"Thanks."

His head inclined gently, an acknowledgement of their new relationship. _Friends_.

"It's snowing sideways up here," Selphie said. "Don't think we're going to be able to see much."

The ship rattled with turbulence. Expertly, Selphie guided them through it. But eventually the currents of hard, tumultuous air became too violent for the Ragnarok to handle. Metal strained and the belt bit into Quistis's thighs as they sailed over the mountain and back again.

"The storm will pass. We'll keep looking when it does," Irvine said.

In the morning, the sun a yellow disc snuggled between mountain crags, they found no sign of Seifer, Raijin, or Fujin. Even in the Ronso village, no one reported seeing them. Quistis tried not to let her disappointment show. But Rinoa put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

"Where to from here?" Selphie asked.

Quistis drew herself together and tried to push Seifer out of her mind. "Kilika. Take me home."

0 0 0

Through the thick haze of cigarette smoke, Seifer watched as a woman in a tastefully revealing black dress walked out on stage and sat down at the bar's piano. She didn't stop to introduce herself. Just placed one foot against the pedals and began to play. The bar patrons all shifted to face her. Seifer had his back to the wall, his feet propped up on a nearby chair and a half-empty glass of something that tasted like turpentine in his hand. Good liquor remained difficult to come by in Bevelle, even now that Yevon's grip on the city had begun to wane.

A week ago, Yuna - now High Summoner Yuna - fresh from the front lines of battle in Zanarkand had delivered news of Sin's demise to all of Spira. Not just a calm this time. Sin, she'd explained, was now well and truly gone. She'd urged all the people of Spira to begin rebuilding and to never forget those who had been lost along the way. Although Seifer hadn't heard the speech for himself, it had been reprinted in full in Bevelle's papers. He'd read over it a dozen times.

The bitterness it filled him with was two-fold: half arising from pure jealousy that Yuna now enjoyed the everlasting fame and adulation that he'd wanted so badly for himself, and the other half rooted in the fact that he had sacrificed everything for a dream that had never been within his reach after all.

In front of him, Raijin and Fujin sat at a table of their own, their heads inclined toward one another as they talked.

"How much longer do you think he'll want to stay here?" Raijin was asking.

"DUNNO."

"We should be in Kilika by now, ya know?"

"AGREED."

Seifer slammed his glass down. "I can hear you guys, you know."

"AWARE."

"We're not going to Kilika. In fact, we're _never_ going to Kilika. So you can quit bringing it up."

"What about Luca then?" Raijin asked as he turned around. "Can't we at least go home? I'd like to get back, ya know? The blitz season's gonna start soon."

Truthfully, he'd lost track of how many days they'd spent in Bevelle now. He kept hoping that he'd have some epiphany. That his life would come back together and he'd wake up one morning knowing what to do next. But he felt just as untethered and lost as when Raijin and Fujin fetched him from the icy slopes of Mount Gagazet. Leaning back in his chair, he buried his hands in his coat pockets and let the fingers of his right hand tangle in the length of black, satin ribbon he kept there.

Maybe it would be best to return to Luca. The trip, at least, would give him more time to think.

With one eye-watering gulp, he finished his drink, then got up to leave. His posse followed close on his heels.

The next morning, he told them what he'd decided: that they would finally go home. Both sagged with relief, though Fujin tired to hide it.

Like their long trek down the mountains and across the Calm Lands, the trip out of Bevelle filled Seifer with unwanted memories. On their way to the city's gate, they passed the street fair, roaring with joy now at the prospect of a world without Sin. The smell of fresh popped popcorn and sound of carnival music made him think of the hint of lemonade he'd found on Quistis's lips when he'd leaned in to kiss her that night. He wished now that he'd taken the time to at least do it properly. He'd figured when he did it that he'd never get the chance again, but he hadn't counted on being alive much longer to dwell on that fact.

To get back to Luca, they had to make the entire pilgrimage again, only in reverse.

They spent their first night on the road bedded down in Macalania Woods. Seifer stared up at the blue and silver leaves of the canopy until he fell asleep, and then dreamed of battling back hoards of forest fiends until the pyreflies swirled around him so thick he couldn't see the trees anymore. Quistis found him there. She smiled up at him, the dazzling lights tangling in her hair and reflecting in her eyes, and then she took his sword from him. She peeled off his coat. Leaned in to press her warm mouth to his shoulder as her hand trailed down his bare arm.

And then he woke to Macalania's ever-present darkness.

The journey home proved more difficult than the pilgrimage since they made their way now without the benefit of aeons or healing magic. Seifer took solace in the bone crushing exhaustion of hiking and fighting. The Thunder Plains, in particular, sapped the life from his veins. He slept like the dead once they arrived at the travel agency. Nothing kept his thoughts at bay for long, however. Everything reminded him of his failed pilgrimage. And of Quistis.

He needed, he realized, to start thinking about something else.

A new occupation.

"How about going back to blitz?" Raijin suggested when he brought it up.

"I've been banned. Remember?"

"Yeah. But you could still probably coach, ya know?"

Somehow, Seifer didn't think the league would allow him anywhere near impressionable, young blitzers.

The defeat of Sin hadn't changed Guadosalam any, although the door to Maester Seymour's large estate sat open. The rumor mill in Bevelle had been churning hard over Seymour's reported death. No one seemed quite certain on the specifics. Some said that he'd died at Yuna's side, fighting Sin. Others whispered that he'd been involved in his own father's death and that Yuna herself had fought and killed him among the crumbling ruins of Zanarkand. Yet another element to add to her legend, Seifer supposed with a bitter sigh.

They passed out of Guadosalam, over the Moonflow, to Djose where word reached them that all of the temple's fayth had turned to stone. Spira would see no more summoners. No more aeons. Yevon's priests had left and a small faction of Al Bhed wandered the place - drawn, perhaps, by the electricity in the air.

Everything had begun to change. At least he wouldn't be the only one struggling to find a new part to play.

By the time they arrived back home in Luca, he had no more answers than when he'd left Bevelle. He dreamed and thought far too often of Quistis, both of the two of them wielding the power of the final summoning to crush Sin and snatches of moments far less grandiose but no less arousing.

Luca remained comfortably unchanged. The small apartment Seifer had rented before leaving for Kilika had been emptied out, all of his meager belongings repossessed to pay back the many months' rent he'd let lapse. So he moved in with Raijin, who let him sleep on his living room floor under a pile of Luca Goers blankets.

As expected, the blitz league didn't welcome him back. Nor did anyone seem particularly interested in paying for his services as a soldier for hire. The Al Bhed had begun installing machina along the highroad to keep back the fiends and the travel agency acquired several hovers, allowing more people to travel safely without any need for a sword.

No one needed him.

No one _wanted_ him.

Unemployed, alone, and homeless, he reached his breaking point.

"Screw this, Raij," he said. "Let's go to Kilika."

0 0 0

Evidence of Sin's attack still marred the city of Kilika. Huge swaths of the waterfront remained destroyed and bits of broken wood lay heaped on the beach, ready to be either re-purposed or disposed of. Everywhere, Seifer heard the sound of construction. The entire layout of the town had been redrawn. No intersection or building or thoroughfare looked familiar. Seifer stood for a long time on the dock where the ship dropped him off, his head still fuzzy with seasickness, and tried to orient himself.

Quistis's house had been to the right, perched over top of a shallow, crystal-blue lagoon.

Now, no homes existed in that direction. Even the lagoon had changed, it's shoreline forever scarred by Sin's passing.

Her home could have been rebuilt anywhere in the city. Where to start?

"TEMPLE?" Fujin suggested.

It was a stretch - with Yevon's fall and Quistis no longer a summoner, Seifer doubted she'd be spending her days up on the mountain. But perhaps someone there would have some idea where to find her. Surely she would still be in contact with the priests who had tutored her.

Kilika's interior teemed with fiends left over from Sin's attack, making the trip through the forest and up the mountain that made up the island's spine long and grueling. When they finally caught sight of the temple, they found the eternal flames extinguished, snuffed out along with the fayth that fed them. They passed no one on their way up the long, stone staircase carved into the hillside. The temple commons proved just as deserted.

"Hello?" Seifer called out as he pushed open the door. "Anybody home?"

A matronly lady in an ankle-length dark blue skirt, white shirt, and plain wedge shoes appeared. She had her greying hair pulled back into a severe bun and her clear eyes assessed Seifer with the same quick, penetrating glance that Quistis had used when they first met.

"She's not here," the woman said.

"Who?"

"Quistis. That's who you're looking for, isn't it? You're that boy. The one who broke precepts, claiming to be her guardian."

"I'm not a _boy_ ," Seifer replied.

The woman raised an eyebrow, then repeated, "She's not here."

"Then where is she? And who are you?"

The woman offered her hand. "My name's Kadowaki. And I don't know where she's at."

"No idea at all?" Seifer asked, suspicious. "I mean…is she still even in Kilika?"

Kadowaki shook her head. "She left with the Al Bhed."

This bit of news rocked him. "What? Why?"

She shrugged. "Starting over I suppose."

"Well…what about her parents? Edea and…er…"

"Cid. They went with her."

"Squall?" Seifer asked, desperate.

Kadowaki held her hands up. "They're all gone. I'm sorry. I'm assuming they were probably on their way back to Bikanel."

The powers of the universe itself seemed to have aligned themselves against Seifer. He wanted to scream. To tear down the temple piece by piece to show Yevon just how much he loathed the bastard. Somehow, he held on to a thin thread of control. Fujin and Raijin guided him out of the temple and back down into the forest where he left a visible wake of pyreflies on his way back to town. It soothed the ache deep in his heart only a little.

"She might come back, ya know?" Raijin offered cheerfully. "She grew up here. This is her home, ya know? She'll be back. We'll wait."

So they did.

Seifer pitched in with the rebuilding and earned himself a small hut on the edge of town with an expansive view of the sea to the south and a stubby bit of unused dock that Raijin took to fishing off the end of. Every day he got up, pulled on his gloves, set to work with hammer, nail, saw, and thatch. And he waited. An eye ever in the direction he thought Bikanel to be. He had no idea if he was really looking the right way. No one in town could seem to agree on the exact location of the Al Bhed homeland.

"Come fish with me today," Raijin said one morning. "You need to unwind, ya know?"

"RELAX," Fujin agreed.

He'd have preferred to spend his day cutting wood or (better) slaughtering fiends in the forest as part of the city's efforts to do away with the last of the sinspawn. But Raijin insisted. So they walked down onto the dock and settled Seifer in at the end with his own pole and tackle box. The fish, Raijin explained, liked to shelter under the pier during the heat of the day, making them easy prey. Seifer would catch a big one in no time. Guaranteed.

With some effort and a scowl, Seifer baited his hook and tossed it down into the water. The sun beat down on his back and the waves lapped just below his feet.

Nothing happened.

For what felt like forever.

He blew out a long breath. How the hell had his life come to this? He was supposed to be a hero by now, lauded everywhere he went, standing for paintings and statues. Or dead. Not this.

Behind him, Raijin let out a hoot and he glanced over his shoulder in time to see his friend pull a huge fish from the water.

Something inside Seifer snapped. Swearing, in a total rage, he threw his fishing pole down on the dock. _Loser_ , he berated himself. _Damned, worthless, piece of shit screw-up._

Fujin clasped her hands behind her back, sent Seifer a sympathetic smile, then placed her foot right in the middle of Raijin's back.

"Hey! What're you-!" He hit the water with a messy splash. "Fujin! What the hell, ya know?"

Despite himself, Seifer laughed. It bubbled up without warning and seized him. Deep, healing laughter. He found himself suddenly wanting to grab Fujin by the shoulders and pull her into a crushing hug. Raijin, too, once he found his way back up onto the dock. The faithful. Even now.

A low rumble caught his attention.

"What the heck is that?" Raijin asked from where he bobbed in the water.

Seifer turned. A plume of sea spray hid everything but a huge, silvery blue fin that, for a second, made Seifer think reflexively of Sin. But as the thing slowed, some of the spray settled, and he was able to see a golden ring pulsing around the craft, propelling it across the water. A ship, he realized. Enormous. Ugly. _Al Bhed_.

Its shadow passed over him as it turned and headed for Kilika's main port. As it blocked the sun for a split second, he saw more detail, including a balcony perched on the ship's massive side. A woman stood there, her arms folded against the railing, her blonde hair rippling in the sea breeze.

His heart swelled, then began to race.

And for the first time in months, he grinned.

_Serendipity._

0 0 0

After so long at sea, it felt good to return to dry land. Quistis changed out of the skin-tight Al Bhed uniform and goggles that she'd taken to wearing and pulled back on the skirt, boots, and vest she'd worn what seemed like a lifetime ago when she'd lived in the little, seaside town. Even though she no longer recognized the streets or houses, she wanted her old neighbors and friends to recognize her. To see how she'd grown and changed.

"The lower levels flooded," Irvine said as he joined her on the balcony overlooking the town. Far down below, their ship bellied up to the tiny-looking dock. "We'll have to run the pumps again and install some patches before setting out for Bikanel."

"How long will that take?"

"A couple of days. But we can stay longer if you want. There's no hurry."

She looked out over the city, already mostly rebuilt. It didn't look like it needed her or the Al Bhed anymore.

When she'd first returned to Kilika on board the Ragnarok, she'd found it completely destroyed, bodies still clogging the lagoon. The days she'd spent alongside Squall, Rinoa, Zell, Irvine, and Selphie helping to put the city back together had reminded her all-too-often of Sin's previous attack when she'd lost her mother and father. Luckily this time her entire family escaped unscathed. Cid and Edea had set up shelter along with Squall's family just outside the woods. All of them welcomed her back with open arms. No one appeared disappointed in her for giving up her pilgrimage.

When word reached Zell from Home of a ship that had been found in deep water some week's south-southwest of Kilika, it didn't take Quistis more than a second to decide that she wanted to go with them. Anything to get away from sinspawn and death for a while.

Surprisingly, her entire family decided to come with her.

They spent months salvaging the ship from the bottom of the ocean and learning enough Al Bhed to order lunch, ask for directions, and insult someone's mother. The Al Bhed had no idea where the ship had come from, whether it had been built by Bevelle or Zanarkand or some other ancient city. It had the name "Balamb" dashed across the side. The size of a building, it contained more rooms than they'd had time to explore including what appeared to be dormitories. Some other, larger spaces the Al Bhed had already begun sectioning off to become the cafeteria, the library, and the infirmary. Someday, Irvine told her, Balamb would be a fully functional mobile city.

Already they carried more than forty passengers. In Kilika, they hoped to pick up a few more.

"Selphie wants to have a party tonight," Irvine said.

"Selphie wants to have a party _every_ night," Quistis replied.

"This one is to celebrate Kilika's rebuilding, Balamb's raising, and Sin's defeat."

"Do we have to help her plan it?"

"She's searching for people to round out her band."

"You're kidding."

Irvine gave her a _we're-talking-about-Selphie-here_ kind of look.

"Well, she can count me out. I have no musical aptitude."

"Might want to try and avoid her then," Irvine said and smiled. "I gotta go help Zell with the pumps. See you later tonight?"

"Sure."

Rather than head down into Kilika, Quistis walked back through Balamb.

For a while, she'd thought of this adventure with the Al Bhed as a temporary thing. Something to keep her occupied until she figured out what else to do with her life. But the past few weeks on Balamb had felt so comfortable, familiar, and homey. Like she'd lived here in a past life.

New tile had been laid in the main thoroughfare and the fountains had been scrubbed clean and renovated so that now they ran with clear, fresh water. Down a corridor marked by a red sign written in Al Bhed, she heard people talking and eating. Down another she spotted Zell having an awkward conversation with a girl with two, perky pigtails. Quistis didn't know her name but recognized her as the woman in charge of building the library.

One of the larger chambers still ran thick with fiends. She found Squall there, his sword drawn and Rinoa beside him, a projectile weapon attached to her arm. He'd been using the fiends there to teach Rinoa how to fight. Some other Al Bhed had expressed interest in the training as well. Squall had wanted nothing to do with it - he didn't like talking in front of large groups, Quistis thought - so she'd taken it upon herself to educate them. Every afternoon. It was her favorite time of day.

Even Cid and Edea had found something to do here by taking on many of the administrative duties involved in keeping Balamb up and running.

Everything had fallen into place.

Well…almost everything.

The absence of Seifer and his posse still bothered her. But she tried not to think about that. By now, he could be anywhere in Spira. She'd never find him and doubted that he wanted her to anyway.

Quistis went about her day as usual until evening fell and Selphie's voice came over the intercom to announce the start of the ball. The building's elevator hadn't been repaired yet, so Quistis took the stairs up to the second floor where the party had already begun. Up on stage, Selphie sang while a group of uncomfortable looking guys slow-jammed behind her on instruments Quistis didn't recognize. Irvine stood recording the whole thing on a shiny sphere.

"Quistis, dear." Edea waved her over. "Have you been down into Kilika? It's amazing. You can hardly tell Sin ever attacked."

"And it will stay that way this time," Cid added with a smile.

"Thanks to Yuna," Quisits agreed.

Cid patted her on the back and out of the corner of her eye Quistis saw Irvine turn and catch them on his sphere camera. Being recorded made her uncomfortable. It was one of the things the Al Bhed did that she wasn't sure she'd ever be comfortable with. But she waved and put on a pleasant expression anyway. Irvine didn't stay on her long, shifting instead to record Zell who sat at a table stuffing his face with _rudtukc_ \- a type of Al Bhed delicacy that resembled sausage. Given the choice, Zell could live off it. The cafeteria on Balamb chronically ran low, much to his dismay. Selphie somehow had managed to gather a feast's worth for the party.

"Hey, Zell…slow down!" Selphie yelled as she hopped off stage, her song finished. "You're gonna-"

Zell's face turned red as he began to choke.

" _Cred_!" Selphie ran across the room and began pounding Zell on the back.

Quistis joined her, the both of them hammering until finally a chunk of half-chewed food flew out of Zell's mouth and landed with a soggy thud on the table.

"That is totally going on the highlight reel," Irvine said. "Hope your library girl saw that. Very smooth, Zell."

Zell barreled across the table at Irvine like a runaway chocobo. "Give me that sphere!" he yelled in Al Bhed.

Smiling to herself, filled with affection for her friends and her new home, Quistis drifted back away from the party so as to take it all in. Her whole life, she'd never had this. Never belonged. In Kilika, she'd spent most of her life in the temple training to become a summoner, something which had increasingly isolated her from people her own age.

A cool breeze ruffled her hair from the open door behind her leading out onto one of Balamb's many balconies. She stepped out onto it to look out over the island, illuminated from below by a hundred tiny windows and from above by the huge moon hanging in the cloudless night sky. The sea lapped far below her feet against Balamb's hull, the water peaceful and safe for the first time in living memory.

"You know, you're not an easy person to find," said someone behind her.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Seifer stood in the doorway, his arms crossed. He looked the same as she remembered: blonde hair pushed back away from his face, silvery trench coat falling about his calves, his mouth drawn into something that was not quite a scowl but not friendly either. Behind him, she could see her friends gathered, pointing. Irvine lifted his sphere camera and began to record.

"Did you know that Pubes is on stage in there right now? Along with his dad, his sister, and two Ronso," he continued when she didn't say anything.

"Rinoa gets him to do things no one else can," she replied. Her mouth felt dry. "You've been looking for me?"

"Yeah. But you'd left by the time I got here."

She clasped her hands, feeling awkward. "I went with the Zell, Selphie, and Irvine to salvage this ship. We just pulled it up off the bottom of the sea."

"I can tell."

The insult stung. "Well, it's home now. I'm going to stay here."

"And do what?"

"Right now, I'm teaching."

The corner of his mouth ticked up. "Teaching? Like we talked about?"

"Sort of. Nothing academic. I'm teaching some of the Al Bhed how to fight."

He smirked. "I think I met some of your students on my way up here. Caused a stir asking about you. They call themselves The Trepies, you know."

"They do?" She hadn't been aware of anything of the sort.

"Yeah, well…in Al Bhed they do. They're saying a lot of other things, too that I'm sure you don't want me to repeat. So I'm just gonna say, I told you so, _Instructor_."

Over his shoulder, she saw several of her students gathered, whispering to one another and watching their exchange. The Trepies? She flushed with embarrassment as her mind raced over what sort of things they'd been saying about her. Her knowledge of Al Bhed was still limited. And while she'd been aware of them chattering away in her classes, she'd always assumed that they'd been discussing the technicalities of her lessons - helping one another to understand.

"Don't worry. I told them to knock it off."

"You didn't have to do that. You're not my guardian anymore."

He stuck his hands in his coat pockets and for the first time looked uncomfortable.

"I could be," he offered. "Seems I'm no good for much else."

Without thinking about it, Quistis took several steps closer. "I'm sure that's not true. You're strong and smart. You could be anything you want."

"Maybe that's the problem," he said. "I don't _want_ to be something else."

"Seifer," she breathed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to abandon you or destroy your dream."

"No. That's not what I meant." He sighed as if she were stupid. "You think I came all the way here because I still give a damn about Sin? Or that I wish even for a second you were dead? You think that's what I dream about now?"

He pulled something out of his coat pocket. It slid dark and shimmery between his hands. Only once he stretched it out and looped it around her waist did she realize what he had: her satin summoner's ribbon. With deft, delicate fingers he tied it in a bow and then hooked his fingers around the ribbon to pull her a step closer.

Her stomach drew into a hot little knot as he leaned down toward her. Often, she'd replayed in her head the moment when he'd kissed her under the fireworks in Bevelle. That one had been quick, over before she'd had the chance to respond. This time, he moved slowly, deliberately, giving her plenty of time to process his intentions. When he finally pressed his mouth to hers, her heartbeat was roaring in her ears and her feet no longer seemed to be touching the floor.

Molten satisfaction flooded her.

She knotted her hands in the lapel of his coat.

A high-pitched chorus of whoops reached them from the ballroom. Seifer broke away and in the half-second before he slammed shut the balcony door she saw Irvine standing next to Raijin and Fujin, still recording, and all the rest of her friends watching, their hands cupped around their mouths as they cheered her on.

Seifer rolled his eyes. "Figures I'd blow this, too. Right? Just like how I screwed everything up on Mount Gagazet. Told you. I'm only good at killing things."

Dropping her hands, she gripped his where they still hooked around the ribbon at her waist. "I can't wear this anymore," she told him. "I'm not a summoner. And I don't need a guardian."

He frowned uncertainly.

"But a _knight_..." She squeezed his fingers and leaned into him. "I missed you, Seifer."

He released a long breath. "Me too."

"Stay here. Balamb can be your home, too. It's where we both belong. I know it. We're going to Bikanel next. We can find out together whether there really are giant cactuars there."

Taking the initiative, she kissed him this time, lingering long, reluctant to separate herself from him. Afraid that he might leave. That this new life she imagined for them wasn't something he could see. Or even something that he wanted. So she kissed him harder, hoping to impress upon him how right this felt. No doubts here. No uncertainty.

"I suppose someone has to beat back your admirers," he said at last. "It's like there's no discipline at all on this boat." His arm drew tight around her. "Balamb, huh? Suppose I could give it a chance."

"In that case…" She grinned up at him and took his hand in hers. "I've got something to show you. A secret area I found. And I think you're going to like the way we've got to go to get there. Did you bring a weapon?"

"Are you joking?"

Her heart raced.

"Let's go, then." She unhooked his fingers from her ribbon and teased: "This is my last order as your summoner."

They walked hand in hand back into the party and down to Balamb's main level, through the fiend-infested training area, and to the hidden door at its back which led out to a balcony illuminated entirely by the ship's lights and the stunning, golden ring still orbiting in the water below. A private star-field that she'd saved for him, her knight.

And they embraced, made buoyant as they shed the weight of broken dreams to start a new story. One without Sin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a rather large gap of time between when I wrote chapters 1-10 and 11-12. Hopefully, this isn't TOO noticeable.
> 
> I have had a few complaints that the ending is anticlimactic and that some readers were hoping to see Quistis and Seifer battle Sin. I had hoped it would be obvious why such an ending was impossible. My aim with this story was to insert FFVIII characters into the FFX world without actually changing it. And in FFX, Yuna defeats Sin. In any case, I liked coming back to FFVIII's ending scene. (Not to mention finally letting Quistis use her "meet me at the Secret Area" line on someone who understood what she meant!)


End file.
